The financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession.
When you're in a public profession like I was, and you stop doing it like I did, people think you're either crazy or dead.
Acting is the most insecure profession in the world - you're insecure if you're successful, you're insecure if you're not. A tightrope walk without a net. It's a miracle I'm still standing!
I was in theater when I was in elementary, middle school and high school. I didn't know it would be an actual profession for me. I didn't think of it as a reality.
I talk about acting to students making the transition from high school to UCLA. Kids going into this profession really need to know the reality of it.
I always treated writing as a profession, never as a hobby. If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.
Growing up, I knew you were supposed to have a profession - and something better than being a shopkeeper, which is what my parents were.
The ABC of our profession is to avoid these large abstract terms in order to try to discover behind them the only concrete realities, which are human beings.
And in times and places where there was not much persecution, people could become and continue Christians who neither were nor professed to be very devoted persons.
Courage is God's way of testing the virtues you profess to have and your level of commitment to everything you think you are.
If you look at anyone at the top of their profession, there has to be something a little bit different. You have to be driven, cold, hard and mentally tough as iron.
Actors need steely determination. It's a tough profession with plenty of knocks along the way. You have to be very determined and never take 'no' for an answer.
I suspect there isn't an actor alive who was able to truthfully answer his family's questions after his first day's activity in his future profession.
Throughout the human experience people have read history because they felt that it was a pleasure and that it was in some way instructive. The profession of professor of history has taken it in a very different direction.
Really, I am just a guy who likes his profession and travelling and good food, and that is it. I'm no different from you or anyone else.
But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.
A man is a better citizen of the United States for being also a loyal citizen of his state and of his city; for being loyal to his family and to his profession or trade; for being loyal to his college or his lodge.
The practice of patience toward one another, the overlooking of one another's defects, and the bearing of one another's burdens is the most elementary condition of all human and social activity in the family, in the professions, and in society.
Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.
We're all on a journey. The average American switches professions four times. I'm lucky to be in a business where I can change the character I am playing every couple of months.
With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction.
