A Quote by Paulo Coelho

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

Paulo Coelho

Quote Topics

Because Book Career Child Death Encouraged First Follow Go Going Me Parents School Starve Thought Took Write Writer Years

Quote Author

Paulo Coelho
Brazilian - Novelist
Born: August 24, 1947

I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong.

Paulo Coelho

My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mother was quite a colourful character and a keen reader who encouraged me to write.

Alexander McCall Smith

My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mother was quite a colorful character and a keen reader who encouraged me to write.

Alexander McCall Smith

Reading was very important to me as a kid. It was very inspirational to me. I went to a school where that wasn't encouraged so much, but my parents encouraged that, and it has made me part of who I am.

Sasha Grey

It took me 40 years to write my first book.

Paulo Coelho

My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it.

Tracy Chapman

My sophomore English teacher encouraged me to write for the school paper, and that's what got me started. Suddenly it struck me that being a writer could be a romantic and adventurous position. Previously, I had thought I would be a tennis pro, giving lessons at a local club. I thought that would be a good life, and it might have been.

Jonathan Ames

I had the wonderful benefit of growing up with parents that not only encouraged me to follow my dreams, but supported my aspirations through school and beyond.

Jason Graves

My parents brought us up in a very clever way, which was that they saw what we were interested in naturally, and then they encouraged whatever that may be. When I started sharing a keen interest in drama and the theater, instead of steering me away from it, they encouraged me to see plays and think about drama school.

Kit Harington

When I was 40, I wrote my first book, The Pilgrimage, and I said to myself, "why did it take so long for me to write this book?" Because my dream, since I was 10 years old, was to be a writer. I said, I have to revisit my life using a metaphor, and the metaphor was basically this boy that has a dream and has to go far away to realize that his dream is close to him.

Paulo Coelho

My mother encouraged me and was very great about me being gay, but she always encouraged me to follow my musical dreams, which I'm very grateful for.

Elton John

It never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and have a career - as well as a family - of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.

Dee Dee Myers

I grew up in a financially insecure place because I knew that my parents were following their dreams which has pros and cons. It was actually my mom who encouraged me to go to acting school because I was really afraid to put all my eggs in that basket.

Zoe Lister-Jones

My mother - my stepmother, really, she herself have been what they call an elocutionist. And she was the one who first encouraged me to write poetry, because she used to read it to us. And then when I began to write when I was nine years old, my first poem was published in the Amsterdam News. I called it "The Graveyard."

Ruby Dee

I wasn't encouraged to write just stand there and sing and I never thought I was a writer. I always figured if I couldn't write something as good as "He Stopped Loving Her Today," then what's the point?