Now, I am perfectly willing to just enjoy my career by choosing roles simply because I consider them to be a challenge and doing the best possible job I can.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes finding joy in one's work through challenges and personal effort.
Cicely Tyson expresses a philosophy of embracing one's career by selecting roles that present a challenge, suggesting that fulfillment comes not only from the roles themselves but also from the personal commitment to perform to the best of one's ability. This perspective highlights the importance of passion and effort in achieving a satisfying professional life, where success is measured by personal growth rather than external accolades.
In practice
During a motivational speech at a career fair, one might say, 'As Cicely Tyson remarked, enjoying challenges in your career leads to true success.'
How do you project a character if you don't have a sense of where she is from? I've always just gotten on a plane to go to the area to get a sense of what it is like, to smell it, feel the earth, hear people talk, go to the marketplaces.
I saw that I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. So I made a choice to use my career as a platform to address the issues of the race I was born into.
I don't think you can measure wealth in dollars and cents. I really don't believe that at all because there are some things that money cannot buy. One of them is health. And the other is security in your relationships and friends.
One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don't want anybody to walk ahead of me, and I don't want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that's how I feel about equal rights.
Unless a piece really said something, I had no interest in it. I have got to know that I have served some purpose here.
When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused
The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing. For, though in every age there are some who, by bold adventures, or by favorable accidents, rise suddenly to riches, yet it is dangerous to indulge hopes of such rare events; and the bulk of mankind must owe their affluence to small and gradual profits, below which their expense must be resolutely reduced.
I have found that great people do have in common. . .an immense belief in themselves and in their mission. They also have gerat determination as well as an ability to work hard. At the crucial moment of decision, they draw on their accumulated wisdom. Above all, they have integrity.
How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.
No one has a corner on success. It is his who pays the price.
My success was not based so much on any great intelligence but on great common sense.
Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it.
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