Top 100 I Want To Be Great Quotes
#1. If I want to be great, I have to win the victory over myself ... self-d iscipline.
Harry S. Truman
#3. I only scream and scratch when something's only 'really good' or 'good', I want to be great, or let's go home.
Jeremy Renner
#4. I want to be great at what I do. I don't want to be just an average rapper.
Rapsody
#5. I want everybody to think I'm a hard worker as an aunt, a sister, a friend, a daughter, a niece, everything. I want to be great at every role, because every role in my life is as important as being Jessie J.
Jessie J.
#6. If it takes me 10 years to be the musician I want to be, great.
Demi Lovato
#7. I don't want to be ordinary. I'm willing to do the work. I'm willing to suffer the indignities of comedy because I want to be great. I don't want to just be good. I want to be great.
Judd Apatow
#8. I want to be great, or nothing. I won't be a commonplace dauber, so I don't intend to try any more.
Louisa May Alcott
#9. ... because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.
Louisa May Alcott
#11. I've always heard that women secretly want their father. So I used to walk around in a 1950s business suit, with a hat and a pipe. My opening line would be, 'You should be getting to bed now.'
Conan O'Brien
#12. When Jim Irsay called me five years ago, he told me, 'I want you to be our coach and help us win the Super Bowl.' He told me, 'We are going win it the right way. We are going to win it with great guys; win it with class and dignity. We are going to win it in a way that will make Indianapolis proud.'
Tony Dungy
#13. Gymnastics, for me, gave me a lot of self-pride: that drive to want to be great at something for myself. But it also gave me a sense of appreciation toward God. Now that I'm getting older, I really appreciate the talents God gave me. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.
Amanda Borden
#14. I'm not Catholic, I'm not Orthodox and I wouldn't even say Rastafarian, that still divides people, I don't want to divide people so anything that I say is something that must be so big and great that it did encompass everyone and it's love.
Ziggy Marley
#15. I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.
Zadie Smith
#16. Hiking is great because it's a lifelong sport and you're outdoors, active, so whether you call that a sport or a hobby or a recreation, I think the wording - it's a great way to get exercise, and it can be as challenging as you want to make it.
Jennifer Pharr Davis
#17. I don't see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, 'I'ma do that,' and they do it. That's it. There's no scientifical process.
Kevin Hart
#18. I want to be a great actor someday, and I've decided there's no use philosophizing; the only way is to work at my craft.
Al Pacino
#19. I don't want to compare myself to anyone else, but there's Paul Smith, who I think does a great job. I feel like once I sort everything to the best quality, I'll be able to compete with them.
Rob Kardashian
#20. I'm going to end a life that I thought could contain every kind of greatness but that in fact consisted only of my incapacity to really want to be great. Whenever I arrived at a certainty, I remembered that those with the greatest certainties are lunatics.
Fernando Pessoa
#21. You don't want to let go, but don't want to be hurt, either. It's not a great place to be but what can I tell you?
Junot Diaz
#22. In the earliest days, this was a project I worked on with great passion because I wanted to solve the Defense Department's problem: it did not want proprietary networking and it didn't want to be confined to a single network technology.
Vint Cerf
#23. I want to host a religious show. I'm sure nobody will be wanting the 11 o'clock spot on Sunday morning. I think we should really get some of our own preachers and preach that gay is good. And we'd have a great choir.
Kate Clinton
#24. I want to be a great player. I don't want to play for the money. I don't want to play for fame. I'd just as soon no one knew who I was. I want to play football because it's football.
Gaines Adams
#25. I don't want to be a great leader; I want to be a man who goes around with a little oil can and when he sees a breakdown, offers his help. To me, the man who does that is greater than any holy man in saffron-colored robes. The mechanic with the oil can: that is my ideal in life.
Baba Amte
#26. I want to be remembered as a great friend, an outstanding father, an amazing husband, and a good soul who always strived to serve God and man. And during that time of service on earth, I would like people to think, "He brought joy, love, opportunity, and fulfillment to millions of people."
Tony Robbins
#27. My son is 7 years old. I am 54. It has taken me a great many years to reach that age. I am more respected in the community, I am stronger, I am more intelligent and I think I am better than he is. I don't want to be a pal, I want to be a father.
Clifton Fadiman
#28. I purposely don't talk about money, because people are already skeptical about TV preachers. But I do say that I want you to be blessed. To me, prosperity is having health, having great children, having peace, good relationships. It's not about the money.
Joel Osteen
#29. I received Christ into my heart and my life began to change. But it was a gradual change. And I didn't see any flashing bulbs. I didn't hear any thunder. There was no great emotional experience. It was just saying: Yes, Lord Jesus, I want you to be the lord of my life.
Billy Graham
#30. I know a lot of people who say they want to leave Tulsa and go off to L.A. or New York City. But I can't wait to come back to Tulsa. It's a great place to be.
Samantha Isler
#31. I want to be remembered as a great player, but I guess it will be as a player who got angry on a tennis court.
John McEnroe
#32. I want to go to Italy and France; those are my two places. And I really want to go to Greece. I've seen so many pictures on Airbnb that make me think I should be living there. I could eat great salads and be on a boat.
Mary Lambert
#33. I wanted to be a part of the first 'Twilight' movie, and unfortunately, it didn't work out so great. So when they came back and were like, 'Do you want to come in for a part for the second movie,' I was like, 'Absolutely.'
Jamie Campbell Bower
#34. I was just a little girl watching TV and wanting to be in it. My parents had no idea how to get me there, but here I am as a part of this great cast on the Disney Channel. Truly, if you just want to do this, then you have to commit to it.
Brenda Song
#35. I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll be a great actress.
Marilyn Monroe
#36. People think a big camera and big lighting will make art, and I want to break that rule. If you have a great concept, it can be art.
Nikki S. Lee
#37. You want to give me chocolate and flowers? That would be great. I love them both. I just don't want them out of guilt, and I don't want them if you're not going to give them to all the people who helped mother our children.
Anne Lamott
#38. Honestly, we'd probably be great parents. But it's a human being, and unless you think you have excellent skills and have a drive or yearning in you to do that, the amount of work that that is and responsibility - I wouldn't want to screw them up! We love our animals.
Ellen DeGeneres
#39. I thought, 'Oh, this is great,' because maybe someone who does look like me will watch 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' and realize that they can be an actor if they want to be, or they can be a superhero. They can have a hero that looks like them as well.
J. August Richards
#40. I started out wanting to write great poems, then wanting to discover true poems. Now, I want to be the poem.
Mark Nepo
#41. I'm done losing weight, I feel great, and I love looking like a woman. I love being curvy and having boobs and hips. It's hot. I don't ever want to be size zero.
Sara Rue
#42. It's like every time you have one of these, you're sort of - your lease is renewed another five years. And that's kind of great for me 'cause that's all I really want to be doing still at this point, like just making records and getting to work with, like, artists that I think are exciting.
Mark Ronson
#43. I thought [ as a kid], "Maybe I don't want to start a punk band necessarily. I just want to learn to be a great songwriter," and got really into trying to figure out how that could be possible.
Ezra Furman
#44. My goal isn't so much genre, or fact-based or not fact-based. I just want to work on projects that I think could be great.
Danny Strong
#45. I certainly hope to be a great publisher, and if people want to love me, too, that's even better.
Katharine Weymouth
#46. What I like about the third movie is you get to see a side of Carlisle you haven't seen before. You actually get to see what his vampire capabilities are because there's some great battle sequences. It's my favorite book. Carlisle is holding on to that humanity. He doesn't want to be a vampire.
Peter Facinelli
#47. I did a modeling gig for Burberry once, and it was a great experience, but no I am not a model. I want to be a model because it's a lot easier than acting.
Alex Pettyfer
#48. I don't want to be one of those 'hour' guys who is all bitter about reality TV. It's as viable as any other genre - when it's great, it's great. However! Reality does a certain thing. It burns quickly, brightly, and then it burns out. You can't repeat them.
Tim Minear
#49. I never want to hold myself up as the poster child of the successful mother-businesswoman. It's a total 'Gong Show.' I won't pretend. When you do so many things, something always suffers. You just can't be great at everything.
Candice Olson
#50. I think what's great about your community is that it's different than anyone else's. Look around. What do you want to change? What needs to be built, or what's valuable and needs to be maintained? Is it the people? Local animals? Your parks or gardens? Hospitals?
Debby Ryan
#51. I just want to be with great teachers. If that means I'm in a horror film with good teachers, I'll do another horror film. But I would love to branch out and do more comedy or just more straight dramas.
Jennifer Carpenter
#52. Like every mom, you try to juggle, but I also want people to know that you don't have to be a superhero. I'm not a superhero; I have a team of people who help me. I have a great family support system.
Kimora Lee Simmons
#53. H&M makes it easy for a guy to look great every single day and create a personal style. Their men's collection always gives me a choice of how I want to dress, whether it be sharp in a suit and polo-neck, or more relaxed in jeans and a tweed jacket.
Joel Kinnaman
#54. Of course you want to be good and you want to do the best you can, but I am inspired by great writing. If there's something about the script, that's what I go for, although I know that that doesn't always translate because sometimes it's about the vision of the director.
Sally Hawkins
#55. If you go around the kitchen and ask my employees what they want to be doing in three to five years, most of them, if they're being honest, will tell you that they don't want to be working for me. They want to have their own place. And I think that's great.
Charlie Trotter
#56. When you have kids you want to be able to go to movies and take the family too, and actually all enjoy it together. I don't think there are that many great, live action family movies that everybody can enjoy.
Ben Stiller
#57. I want to be Gwyneth Paltrow when I grow up! She's been able to have such a great career, such a great family and she stays so humble and so real.
Matthew Morrison
#58. I think: 'Wouldn't it be great to work with Bill Murray?' And then I'm like, 'You know what, just appreciate Bill Murray from afar, don't find out that maybe he's not the dude you want to work with.'
Kevin Smith
#59. I think it's great to be talked about as a woman film-maker. It's part of who I am; it affects me daily. I want it to be part of the conversation. I'm for any scheme or initiative that gives women a way in.
Sarah Gavron
#60. I'm in a great situation because I know what kind of player I want to be, I know where I'm going to be, and I know what I have to do to get there and I'm around the right guys.
La'el Collins
#61. I don't want to infantilize the actor; I want to empower the actor. Actors can be many things, but all of the really good ones are really great storytellers, and I'm interested in that. If you're not interested in that as a director then you better be Stanley Kurbrick.
Paul Bettany
#62. I just want to be able to have fun, make a living, feed my family and create something that I'm proud of, and I'm all those things. It's great.
Eddie McClintock
#63. You want an idea about what you can say. I know it sounds like a bad idea but here's specifically why its actually a great one. You want to sound crazy but you want to ask to be right.
Sam Altman
#64. I ran like a champion. It is a great consolation to show how dominant I am. I am the Olympic champion and the world champion, but I want Justin Gatlin to be the champion of everything,
Justin Gatlin
#65. If I can inspire some leaders, that would be great. I don't know if I want to be a leader.
Joe Wurzelbacher
#66. I keep reading about people who want to be famous - it's not that they want to be great songwriters or great actors, they want to be celebrities. That is scary because you can be famous doing some really stupid things.
Barry Manilow
#67. I simply want to be remembered as a great competitor and a great teammate.
Steve Nash
#68. I have no desire to write historical anything or futuristic anything - I want to find a way to get at the essence of what it's like to be alive now. The reason why great novels from centuries ago are still great is because that's what they were doing; it's like a message from another culture.
Jonathan Dee
#69. It's nice to always have a job and not be floating out in the ether waiting for whatever the next big thing is. So, in that way I hope there's no a shelf-life for great shows. On the other hand, you don't want to be working on something that's reached its peak and become irrelevant.
Mary Elizabeth Ellis
#70. Women are now more aggressive than men! And I don't put them down for it. I think it's great. My attitude with sex with any woman I've ever been with is, I want you to be exactly who you want to be behind closed doors. Don't ever hold back with me.
Andrew Dice Clay
#71. I don't care what they say about me when I'm through with sports. I don't want to be known as anything else in life but a great father.
Deion Sanders
#72. I want to be remembered as a great athlete. As a boxing champion.
Idi Amin
#73. I didn't want to be precious about things. Of course, the idea is to make great music, but if you have great musicians up there, it gives me some leeway to play around a little bit.
Fiona Apple
#74. Everybody's not as fortunate as I've been that can have their hubby with them on the road, that we can do whatever we want and mainly be honest with the kids. Just the time that you do give them, make it be great time. It doesn't have to be hours.
Gloria Estefan
#75. I don't set myself targets. Last season I scored hat-trick against Wolfsburg and three days later, that was forgotten, you're about to be judged again. When you've done well, you don't want another game, you just want to feel great. When you've done badly, you can't wait for another chance to come.
Michael Owen
#76. I realize that I want something more. Success is great, but then you also wake up in your hotel room at four in the morning and you're like, wouldn't it be nice to have someone here with me.
Alicia Keys
#77. I don't want to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God,who loves us and who wants to save us.
Oscar A. Romero
#78. I am so picky about what films I get myself into because it's such an explosion of energy and commitment once you get in there, you destroy your life until you deliver these films. I never want to be in the position of making films that won't be a great use of 90 minutes of someone's life.
Lucy Walker
#79. Careful. I don't want to have to do that again. Your veins are hard to find. You'd make a great pincushion for any trainee phlebotomist."
"Gee, thanks," I muttered, rolling my eyes. "I've always wanted to be someone's guinea pig.
Shaye Evans
#80. I don't think Jennifer Lawrence deserves to be in this category [leading role]? Joy is a great movie, obviously. She's a great actress and I don't want to take anything from her, but it ain't American Hustle.
Bun B.
#81. One very gratifying compliment I sometimes hear is that women want to be my best friend. This endlessly amuses my actual best friend, Jocelyn, because in her estimation I'm 'a good friend, but not that great.
Mindy Kaling
#82. The reason I say I'm a horrible person is I don't want myself to be presented as somebody who's a great Catholic.
Jim Gaffigan
#83. My wife and I have a schizophrenic son. We didn't want to accept this for 30 years, so we put him under great pressure when we shouldn't have. He just wanted to be looked after, and we didn't respect that. We tried to make him independent.
James D. Watson
#84. Support is really important to me. It's quite a responsibility when people are paying for tickets. I've spent ten years playing for free, now it's like, bloody hell people are spending a tenner and I want it to be a great show and I really don't subscribe to having a crap support band.
KT Tunstall
#85. What a moment to take the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other and watch the unfolding of the great drama of the ages. This is an exciting and thrilling time to be alive. I would not want to live in any other period.
Billy Graham
#86. I don't want to get old. I want to stay young forever. Wouldn't that be great?
Koji Suzuki
#87. I've always felt really lucky to get to work with really great filmmakers. For me, the whole objective is just to hopefully be of service to what they want.
Bryce Dallas Howard
#88. I think 'Game of Thrones' was extraordinary. I want to do some period pieces. It would be lovely to tell great stories, that is my main ambition. And to be working with amazing creators.
Stana Katic
#89. The great challenge for me is to be all things to all people; I want to be a great mother, and I want to feel good when I'm at work.
Sarah Jessica Parker
#90. I don't want to be one of those great players who never made it to the Series.
Rickey Henderson
#91. I'm a big fan of all the Boston guys that are acting - Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Mark Wahlberg - they made a great career out of it, and they found a way to do it and still be cool guys, so that's kind of where I want to be.
Kenny Wormald
#92. No one's being precious about their music. They want the film to be great. And that was the huge lesson for me along the way to be a filmmaker. And yes, I'm leading the music department kind of thing and that responsibility with the music is with me, but really that job is one of many.
Steven Price
#93. I always feel like if someone has stage fright, I really try and say, "Listen, these people want you to succeed, they want to have a good evening. They want to see something really great. They don't want to see something crappy. They don't. They want to be at something really special."
Laurie Anderson
#94. My youth coach told me he'd got these two great 15-year-olds. I told him I don't want to know, because by the time they're 18 I'll be dead.
Martin O'Neill
#95. I see myself as an explorer more than a storyteller. A great storyteller, in control of her craft, must be the same person when she finishes telling a story as she was at the start. But I want to be transformed by my filmmaking, by the journey I take.
Joshua Oppenheimer
#96. In America, I am brown; I'm 'of colour', so I would be offered Latin roles, and I've fought against that. I don't want to be put in a category, to be just offered the same sort of thing. For me, it's all about different roles, telling the stories of the great writers.
Santiago Cabrera
#97. I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it's inside the box. A great carpenter isn't going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody's going to see it.
Walter Isaacson
#98. I believe that everybody needs to tell their story - to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be understood. We all want that, deep down inside - and writing a book is a great way to make sense of your own experience and to share it with others.
Shakti Gawain
#99. But as I wrote the book [Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet], I tried to write it as clearly and directly and passionately as possible just thinking of communicating to readers who might want to learn about this great thinker and be inspired by him as I was.
Jeffrey Rosen
#100. I think the thing about what I want to achieve for the label is it to really be a home for artists who are already developed, who already have a great sense of their artistry or their imaging, who don't really feel or want that marketing push.
Solange Knowles
