Brass Ring Quotes & Sayings

For me, my 20s were all about reaching for the brass ring of work in theater, television, and film, surviving in between by waiting tables, painting houses, serving coffee, and temping. — Kate Walsh

You don't need to be born with a silver spoon to reach for the brass ring — Sandra Lee

As President, I will institute a procedure in which all convicted criminals will have this brass ring will be surgically implanted into their foreheads-Americans have a right to know who they can trust. I don't care if you're 5, 6, or 7 years old, if you're a first-time offender, you're gonna go to Purgatory and it's not gonna be fun! — Bob Backlund

I had a good political career, and I have a good business career. I didn't get the brass ring, but I did very well. — Dan Quayle

I couldn't write. I grew tense. I was strangled by my own ego, by my petty desire for what I perceived to be the literary brass ring. I was missing the point, of course. The reward is in the doing. — Dani Shapiro

I'm a weak character, without guts or ambition. I caught the brass ring and it shocked me to find out it wasn't gold. A guy like me has one big moment in his life, one perfect swing on the high trapeze. Then he spends the rest of his time trying not to fall off the sidewalk into the gutter. — Raymond Chandler

Set flush in the wall behind the desk was a steel door. It was knobless, and along one edge were three brass keyholes spaced a few inches apart. Rube brought out a key ring, selected a key, then walked around the desk, inserted the key in the topmost lock, and turned it. From his watch pocket he took a single key, pushed it into the middle keyhole, and turned. The guard stood waiting beside him, and now the guard inserted a key in the bottom keyhole, turned it and pulled the door open with the key. Rube removed his two keys and gestured me in through the open door before him. He followed, and the door swung solidly shut behind us. I heard the multiple click of the locks engaging, and we were standing in a space hardly larger than a big closet, dimly lighted by an overhead bulb in a wire cage. Then I saw that we were at the top of a circular metal staircase. — Jack Finney

If you're in the room, you've grabbed the brass ring. You are all winners. — George Clooney

Not all of us need to spend every second of our lives trying to get somewhere other than where we are. Not all of us have to grab the brass ring on the carousel. Some of us just like to go around and enjoy the ride. — Barbara Freethy

It's fine to be on the hamster wheel, running and running, trying to grab the brass ring or whatever you define as success, but your relationships, that's really all that matters when it's all said and done. — Katie Couric

Only then will women be able to talk about what "beauty" really involves: the attention of people we do not know, rewards for things we did not earn, sex from men who reach for us as for a brass ring on a carousel, hostility and scepticism from other women, adolescence extended longer than it ought to be, cruel aging, and a long hard struggle for identity. And we will learn that what is good about "beauty" - the promise of confidence, sexuality, and the self-regard of a healthy individuality - are actually qualities that have nothing to do with "beauty" specifically, but are deserved by and, as the myth is dismantled, available to all women. The best that "beauty" offers belongs to us all by right of femaleness. When we separate "beauty" from sexuality, when we celebrate the individuality of our features and characteristics, women will have access to a pleasure in our bodies that unites us rather than divides us. The beauty myth will be history. — Naomi Wolf

By some curious mischance, a couple of my plays managed to hit an area where commercial success was feasible. But it's wrong to think I'm a commercial playwright who has somehow ceased his proper function. I have always been the same thing
which is not a commercial playwright. I'm not after the brass ring. — Edward Albee

With me, growing up in a theater family and having them be so supportive, from the jump, and being a part of this theater community where the brass ring is working, wherever that is, and then to play a character where he's not really concerned with that and is really just concerned with the monetary aspect of the job, and then to be identified with someone who is the antithesis of your energy and where you come from, has been a very interesting and surreal ride. — Jeremy Piven

The acne-pitted kid manning the controls flips the switch, and the carousel begins to wheeze to a stop. Sophie leans forward, caressing the plaster mane. Fitz and Delia appear again, standing up in the stirrups for a last stretch at the brass ring. They're batting at each other's hands and laughing. There's an S-curved steel bar at the top of the carousel that makes one of their horses rise as the other falls. It looks like they're moving separately, but they're not. — Jodi Picoult

And after that they had gone through many streets they came to a little door that was set in a wall that was covered with a pomegranate tree. And the old man touched the door with a ring of graved jaspar and it opened, and they went down five steps of brass into a garden filled with black poppies and green jars of burnt clay. — Oscar Wilde

I know some actors feel classes are not cool or they create negative public relations, but I continue to crave the story just beyond my reach. To grasp that brass ring I need to continue to fine-tune my talents. — Michael Welch

Life's just a merry-go-round. Come on up. You might get a brass ring. — Mae West

It wasn't until I let go of the idea of the brass ring that it showed up, and fortunately for me, it coincided with getting clean. — Samuel L. Jackson

Basically that you can do anything. If you pool your resources,and just give up the idea that you're going to act like a normal person or sleep, if you want it hard enough and do it well enough, it happens. A lot of really talented people either sort of get crushed under the wheel of the movie studio system or desperately try and get their next gig in TV. I understand why, because we've all got to put food on the table and the brass ring is out there, we'd all like to be making the Emmy-winning shows and the blockbusters and all that, but at the same time you could be doing stuff yourself. — Joss Whedon

Fred at six years old thought her the nicest girl in the world, making her his wife with a brass ring which he had cut from an umbrella. — George Eliot

Being Governor of a state is generally considered a prelude or stepping stone to a U.S. Senate seat. Not so in Alabama. The governor's office has always seemed to be the ultimate brass ring — Steve Flowers

I've had so much success. I had something to say, I got to say it, people heard it, and they agreed. That's every artist's dream. That's the brass ring. — Joss Whedon

I do happen to have a good life ... But I also like to work. I feel like I got the brass ring and I got very lucky in this. — George Clooney

Never had anyone said, Listen. Life is short. Pretend your body is still in its twenties. Jump for the brass ring. Swing for those bleachers. Dive into the deep end of the pool. Act like a fool if you must, but at least *live*. — Cathie Pelletier

My father died very suddenly at sixty-three. Just dropped dead. For a long time afterward, I'd ask myself, Why didn't I ask him to play golf more? Why didn't I spend more time with him? But when you're off trying to get the brass ring, you forget and overlook those little things. It gives you a certain amount of regret later on, but there's nothing you can do about it. So you just forge on. — Clint Eastwood

Selling out isn't selling out anymore. It's getting the brass ring. — Jason Calacanis

Although your staff may be exposed to the message "work longer and harder" while they're at the office, they're getting a very different message at home. The message at home is, "Life is passing you by. Your laundry is piling up in the closet, your babies are uncuddled, your spouse is starting to look elsewhere. There is only one time around on this merry-go-round called life, only one shot at the brass ring. And if you use your life up on C++ . . . — Tom DeMarco

It is not enough to reach for the brass ring. You must also enjoy the merry go round. — Julie Andrews