Ambition Quote by Allen Tate

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history,…

— Peter Ackroyd

For me, it was the Army or prison. I wanted to make something of myself. The Army gave me that determination, the will to…

— Nigel Benn

I grew up. I began to think the United States had some problems that really required the help of artistic people to solve. And…

— Wallace Shawn

It occurred to me that I would like to be a poet. The chief qualification, I understand is that you must be born. Well,…

— Hector Hugh Munro

I always thought of myself as a kind of literary bureaucrat. And that was never going to be enough for me.

— Michael Korda

My primary ambition is to be a fiction writer... Being a critic wasn't an aspiration of mine.

— Walter Kirn

I devoted myself to writing for years without representation or a promise of anything. And there were times when I felt quite down about…

— Geoffrey S. Fletcher

I became a writer out of the desire to express myself.

— Pankaj Kapur

When my relations with the Communist Party gave me the necessary perspective I decided to write my autobiography. I wanted to show how a…

— Jean-Paul Sartre

I never met anybody in my life who says, I want to be a critic. People want to be a fireman, poet, novelist.

— Leslie Fiedler

I used to want to be a war photographer, and I used to want to be a ballerina and a comedian. I used to…

— Cat Power

My father wanted me to be a dentist like him, or any doctor, really. There was this attitude of, 'The civil rights movement was…

— Amy Sherald