Experience is what you get when you did not get what you wanted — and these quotes prove that the lessons of lived experience are impossible to shortcut. They cover wisdom earned the hard way, the value of mistakes, and why secondhand knowledge only gets you so far.
“In high school, I was on the youth advisory council for the Mayor's Office of Los Angeles, and that was kind of my first experience in the bureaucratic system. We tried to get things done, and nobody was really interested in getting anything done.”
“I want to be able to experience everything. I want to experience being a husband, experience being a father, experience, maybe, hopefully, someday being a grandfather, and all those things. I want that experience. When I die, I want to be exhausted.”
“I loved the material when I first read it, and the experience of making the film was a great one. So when we came around to complete the trilogy, I just signed on board without even reading the scripts because the experience of the first film was so good.”
“Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.”
“And then I went to 'Dawson's Creek,' which is a show that was, for better or for worse, all about the language. It was a word-perfect show, which I'd never had any experience with. And it was really shocking for me. I felt really hemmed in. At the time, it wasn't my favorite working experience.”
“I think generally I'm kind of interested in subjective experience, what goes on inside someone's head, that being all they really know of the world.”
“You know, it shouldn't just be about women as heroic figures overcoming things, it just needs to be about women in general getting the opportunity to play a multitude of roles, telling a multitude of stories - just to express human experience from a woman's perspective. I hope, someday, we can get to that point. I'm all about representation.”
“It was a very bizarre experience for me, to get the songs together, go in there, and try to deliver them as I would perhaps in a live setting. But I realized that I couldn't take on that coffeehouse style that I came from and go in there and burn it up.”
“I don't care how smart a kid you are. The only way you learn what's not right is from experience.”
“You may never learn the names of any of the people you talk to in a dog park, even after many, many hours spent there with them, and many hours of conversation. But if - knock on wood - anything should ever happen to your dog, these nameless non-strangers will rally, sympathize, offer to help, and hold your hand. I know this from experience.”
“Watching the evening news in 2011 is a strange time-travel experience. 'The CBS Evening News,' 'ABC World News' and 'NBC Nightly News' haven't changed their style over the decades, still going for that old-fashioned mix of voice-of-authority pomp and feel-good fluff. The difference is that people aren't watching.”
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
“Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.”
“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”
“I believe there's no proverb but what is true they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.”
“I think it's really, really important to mix it up as an actor, to try to get as much kind of varied experience as you can, not only for your own personal growth as an actor but for the audience to keep them guessing about what you're going to do.”