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
When I grew up, my father used to say that cricket is not a profession, cricket cannot bring you food. But I think he lived to see the day when I was actually paid.
A great investment opportunity occurs when a marvelous business encounters a one-time huge, but solvable problem.
A lot of times I'll see guys who are nowhere near the level of the board they're riding. They might love surfing and love how it looks, but you really have to work your way up. It takes eating a little humble pie at first, and stepping back to equipment that might be a bit slow, but do it.
Roger, liftoff, and the clock is started.
In essence, I owe my career to Garry Marshall. There was no known reason for him to hire me for 'Pretty Woman.'
Greatness consists not in the holding of some future office, but really consists in doing great deeds with little means and the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life.
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