Do Your Own Quotes

“They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.”

— Robert Cormier

“They tell you to do your own thing but they don't mean it. They don't want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too.”

— Robert Cormier

“You can't get spoiled if you do your own ironing.”

— Meryl Streep

“When God has a plan for your life, I don't care how much you murmur and complain and kick and fuss and scream and yell. When you know that God has a plan for your life, He got you tied up ... I serve a God who will tie you up when you're acting crazy, tie you up, while you're trying to do your own thing, tie you up while your temper is raging, tie you up, when your ambition is out of control. Sometimes, God will tie you up til the time is right. Nothing will work, your money won't work, your career won't work, the boyfriend will leave, the house will sell, cause when God has you tied up, He's not gonna let you get away. He'll say, Be still and see the salvation of the Lord.”

— T.D. Jakes

“You do your own thing and you see if you survive.”

— Ricky Gervais

“After you fail, which I have, you can either choose to crumble and retreat and become nonfunctional, which I've seen happen, or you can just become a lone wolf, forget about the cool kids and just continue to do your own thing.”

— Diablo Cody

“It looks better when you do your own stunts, because seeing somebody's face when they're doing them is fun for the audience.”

— Adrianne Palicki

“The point of serving your country is not to do your own thing or to go rogue, but to work as part of the process.”

— Kal Penn

“When you're an artist, you can only do your own stuff. Even if you only write for other people, you're really more focused on yourself. So while everybody's out touring, I'm working on records.”

— Rico Love

“Inner peace-you need to know who you are, what you want out of life. You have to do your own thinking, and for that you better know who you are, and not just know but be secure in it, comfortable with yourself. Plus you gotta have discipline. Stamina. And luck sure helps. A little luck counts for a lot, including our great good luck of being born into the greatest economic system ever devised. It's not a perfect system by any means, but overall it's responsible for tremendous human progress. In just the past century alone, we've seen something like a seven-to-one improvement in the standard of living. I'm not saying we don't have problems, we've got a helluva lot of problems, but that's where the genius of the free market comes in, all the drive and talent and energy that goes into solving those problems.”

— Ben Fountain

“All I can tell you is that you cannot make choices in your own career, either career choices or choices when you're actually working as an actor, based on trying to downplay or live up to a comparison with somebody else. You just can't do that. You have to do your own work based on your own gut, your own instincts, and your own life.”

— Brandon Lee

“It's ok to do your own thing for a while sometimes the call of the soul is a much more enticing path then one of a drunken phone call from your pals, call it the 21st century or whatever you wish but most live for the weekend untying the knots & ropes of slavery from during the week with no drive nor purpose to become something more than a pay check & a good time every 5 days.”

— Nikki Rowe

“On a film, you do your own work, you come together and meet on set, and then you shoot. It's great.”

— Bojana Novakovic

“Do your own thing. Others own their own thing. If you copy too much, you'll find yourself in late night cocktail lounge cover band limbo.”

— Kurt Cobain

“You do your own time in prison. You don't do anyone else's time for them.”

— Neil Gaiman

“Not an option. You burned your bridges. So keep walking. Do your own time ...”

— Neil Gaiman

“It was a survival thing: he didn't answer back, didn't say anything about job security for prison guards, debate the nature of repentance, rehabilitation, or rates of recidivism. He didn't say anything funny or clever, and, to be on the safe side, when he was talking to a prison official, whenever possible, he didn't say anything at all. Speak when you're spoken to. Do your own time. Get out. Go home ... Rebuild a life.”

— Neil Gaiman

“You've got to stand up and do your own battles. My daddy taught me that a long time ago, that you fight your own battles. The only way to shut everybody up is to win.”

— Terry Bradshaw

“It's like, you can't have any fun, and if you do have fun, if you do your own thing, you're considered crazy and should be in a mental institution. Now, that's what I find creepy. I'm eccentric. I am not messed up.”

— Crispin Glover

“It's a great excuse and luxury, having a job and blaming it for your inability to do your own art. When you don't have to work, you are left with the horror of facing your own lack of imagination and your own emptiness. A devastating possibility when finally time is your own.”

— Julian Schnabel

“The idea that you can live off the grid and just do your own thing is a very American idea - that you should be able to do your own thing, if you want to, if you're willing to pay the price for it. I think the price has gotten higher and higher.”

— Dana Spiotta

“I always dreamed when I was a little girl interested in animals that I would go live in Africa. Then I found out that you can look in your backyard, and you can do your own safari.”

— Isabella Rossellini

“Whenever you're trying to do your own take on a classic piece of literature, it's almost like you're trying to swim up your own stream or drive down your own path.”

— Joel Edgerton

“It's important in a relationship to have moments when you do your own thing.”

— Kaley Cuoco

“You spend five months filming in outer space and saving the world, and suddenly that kind of family unit and story disappears, and you come crashing back down to Earth, and you have to do your own washing ... and most actors are insecure that the last job they did will be their last job ever.”

— Sam Worthington

“If you're too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.”

— Vivienne Westwood

“You always try to do your own thing. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a book that combines some of the best traits of contemporary fantasy with some of the traits of the historical novel.”

— George R.R. Martin

“No, that thievery is." I shake my head, turning away from the replication. "Nobody likes a cheap knock-off. If you're going to be an artist, you've gotta do your own thing. Be your own person. Create what's in you instead of impersonating others. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I call bullshit. It's one thing to be inspired by something. It's another thing to fucking copy it.”

— J.M. Darhower

“For sex to be wholly satisfying, we must have at least as much concern for a partner as for self - a requirement that doesn't live comfortably alongside the exhortation to 'do your own thing.' In the end, we are left with an extraordinarily heightened set of expectations about the possibilities in human relationships that lives side by side with disillusion that, for many, borders on despair.”

— Lillian B. Rubin

“Train yourselves. Don't wait to be fed knowledge out of a book. Get out and seek it. Make explorations. Do your own research work. Train your hands and your mind. Become curious. Invent your own problems and solve them. You can see things going on all about you. Inquire into them. Seek out answers to your own questions. There are many phenomena going on in nature the explanation of which cannot be found in books. Find out why these phenomena take place. Information a boy gets by himself is enormously more valuable than that which is taught to him in school.”

— Irving Langmuir

“You just kind of go and do your own thing. Sometimes it's really hard to compare apples and oranges, so you don't really think of it that way. You just perform to your fullest potential and hope everybody else does too. And however it works out, it works out.”

— Jennifer Nettles

“When it comes time to do your own life, you either perpetuate your childhood or you stand on it and finally kick it out from under.”

— Rosellen Brown

“Through working with amazing people, the bar is always raised to do your own best work. I want to be a part of unique stories that are smart, heartfelt, funny and sad, and have a general sense of good quality.”

— Ari Graynor

“The critical ingredient is a maverick mind. Focus on trading vehicles, strategies and time horizons that suit your personality. In a nutshell, it all comes down to: Do your own thing (independence); and do the right thing (discipline).”

— Gil Blake

“Up here [in space], you're free. Really free, for the first time in your life. All the laws and rules and prejudices they've been dumping on you all your life ... they're all down there. Up here it's a new start. You can be yourself and do your own thing ... and nobody can tell you different.”

— Ben Bova

“Don't let anyone make you feel like you're not good enough, smart enough or cool enough. Do your own thing.”

— Benji Madden

“I'm not out here on the front lines trying to create clones, or consumers, or worshippers of who I am, and what I do. I'm trying to nurture the idea that you should do your own thing, which is really powerful.”

— Mike Vallely

“Either you participate in the community like an adult or you leave and do your own thing,”

— Havoc Pennington

“This business can be very frustrating but there is success story after success story of people who take the bull by the horns. Actors who are frustrated ... [should] do your own project. Find a writer, shoot a movie. It can be done,”

— Tony Shalhoub

“The key is to do your own work.”

— Kyle Bass

“The 'cleverness' syndrome has taken the place of melody. It's like everyone has come down with this terrible disease in jazz ... you are always expected to do your own material, which is a strange thing to do if you're a poor composer but a great player.”

— Keith Jarrett

“I have fashion designers that I definitely respect. After working for a few years in the industry, you want to branch out and do your own thing and I think that's something that has always been important to me is strengthening the brand and just sticking to "this is who we are, this is our identity, this is who we're going to be". I definitely respect other designers but I don't necessarily have one that I look up to.”

— Lauren Conrad

“We don't go to Sabbath meetings to be entertained or even solely
to be instructed. We go to worship the Lord. It is an individual
responsibility, and regardless of what is said from the pulpit, if one
wishes to worship the Lord in spirit and truth, he may do so by
attending his meetings, partaking of the sacrament, and
contemplating the beauties of the gospel If the service is a
failure to you, you have failed. No one can worship for you. You
must do your own waiting upon the Lord.”

— Spencer W. Kimball

“No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work.”

— Mother Teresa

“Think for yourself. Unplug yourself from follow-the-follower groupthink, and virtually ignore what everyone else in your industry is saying (except the ones everyone agrees is crazy). Do your own research, draw your own conclusions, set your own course, and stick to your guns. When you're just starting out, people will tell you you're wrong. After you've blown past them, they'll tell you you're crazy. A few years after that, they'll (privately) ask you to mentor them.”

— Steve Pavlina

“Don't feel guilty if you don't immediately love your stepchildren as you do your own, or as much as you think you should. Everyoneneeds time to adjust to the new family, adults included. There is no such thing as an "instant parent."
Actually, no concrete object lies outside of the poetic sphere as long as the poet knows how to use the object properly.”

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“The good thing about being a writer is that you don't need anything except for a laptop. You can really do your own work and if you're not manically compelled to write all the time before you do it professionally, it's probably not a business for you anyway.”

— Thomas Lennon

“Abstractions about right and wrong, whether they are as old as Thou Shalt Not Kill or as modern as Do Your Own Thing, often serve only to confuse and weaken genuine moral decision.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin

“The freedom to do your own thing ends when you have obligations and responsibilities. If you want to fail yourself - you can - but you cannot do your own thing if you have responsibilities to team members.”

— Lou Holtz

“Learn to say No-and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.”

— Robert A. Heinlein