Defining Moments Quotes

One sign of a great actor is when he can be alone by himself on the screen, doing almost nothing, and producing one of a film's defining moments.

As far as a defining moment, that was a hugely successful and very busy time for me. 1975, 1976, 1977 - that whole time frame.

I believe the defining moment was when certain persons, who shall remain nameless, objected to my fuchsia silk striped waistcoat. I loved that waistcoat. I put my foot down, right then and there; I do not mind telling you!" To punctuate his deeply offended feelings, he stamped one silver-and-pearl-decorated high heel firmly. "No one tells me what I can and cannot wear!" He snapped up a lace fan from where it lay on a hall table and fanned himself vigorously with it for emphasis.

Grads need to remember that it's [showcases] just a jumping off point for their career, not the defining moment.

People have defining moments, i suppose, especially when they're children.

I did it through our ministries. We had ordination and basically understanding there ought - to be ordained that God has set apart, for the purposes of ministry. This is an important thing because of that defining moment, when I held that word up, I said I want to spend the rest of my life helping people.

The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment.

And when you really think about the 9-11 event, the horrific attack on our land here in America and the death of three thousand of out loved ones, it was a defining moment.

An eye-opening moment in my life, a very defining moment, was the first time I met Susan Sarandon [before shooting Thelma & Louise]. We were going to meet, just Ridley [Scott] and Susan and I, to go through the script and see if we had any thoughts or ideas. I was reading the script, and in the most girly way possible, meaning that if it was a line that could change or something different I'd like to see, I would think about each one and say, "Well, this one can wait till the set because I don't want to bring up too many things."

I think you only see experiences as defining moments with distance.

Tommy Hearns seemed like an indestructible machine, so to beat him, I think that was my defining moment, the pinnacle.

That's a defining moment, there, when someone plays an instrument that everyone relates to around the planet.

I want to find that defining moment that you're satisfied and you've done what you want to do in your life.

All I want is the defining moment.

I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience.

There must've been some part of me that wanted to make my mark. But there was never a defining moment.

Press on. Your defining moment may arrive just when you feel surrounded by adversity.

But in life we don't usually get to choose the time of our defining moments. We just have to stand and face them when they come, no matter what sort of a state we're in.

I don't want to look back-I want to keep looking ahead. I'd hate for my defining moment to be my past.

Instead of setting goals, seek defining moments. Those are the real tests, because you have to be willing to fail in a pressure situation in front of other people.

We all have life-defining moments. They are like open-book tests, but we don't know we have been examined until it is over.

We talk about defining moments, but I think nothing can define you. They're all refining moments. You're constantly refining yourself and refining your life.

When a defining moment comes along, you define the moment, or the moment defines you.

...the truer measure of sacrifice isn't so much what one gives to sacrifice as what one sacrifices to give. Faith isn't tested so much when the cupboard is full as when it is bare. In these defining moments, the crisis doesn't create one's characterit reveals it.

I don't know if it was a defining moment. I knew it as soon as I could comprehend the possibility of having a career. I knew very young I wanted to be a movie star. As much as I grew into love of the craft. As soon as I could speak I was auditioning and going to classes every day. It was my life.

We all have defining moments. It is in these moments that we find our true characters. We become heroes or cowards; truth tellers or liars; we go forward or we go backward.

For most entertainers, there is a single experience, one defining moment, when confidence replaces the self-doubt that most of us wrestle with.

I have worked in the homes of many successful people and have seen firsthand that everyone fails in life, but failure can be a gift if you don't give up and are willing to learn, improve, and grow because of it.  You see, failure often serves as a defining moment, a crossroads on the journey of your life.  It gives you a test designed to measure your courage, perseverance, commitment, and a dedication.  Are you a pretender who gives up after a little adversity or a contender who keeps getting up after getting knocked down?

It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it 'Jumping the Shark.' From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same.

In your life's defining moments there are two choices - you either step forward in faith and power or you step backward into fear.

Once the threshold is crossed when there is a self-sustaining level of life in space, then life's long-range future will be secure irrespective of any of the risks on Earth. Will this happen before our technological civilization disintegrates, leaving this as a might-have-been? Will the self-sustaining space communities be established before a catastrophe sets back the prospect of any such enterprise, perhaps foreclosing it forever? We live at what could be a defining moment for the cosmos.

I think the defining moment in my career is the day that I moved to Nashville - September 1, 2001. That's the biggest step to getting here is making that move. Anything that happens, the wonderful opportunities that happen to you, can't happen until you make that move.

The men I idolized built their bodies and became somebody - like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger - and I thought, 'That can be me.' So I started working out. The funny thing is I didn't realize back then that I was having a defining moment.

Highly successful leaders ignore conventional wisdom and take chances. Their stories inevitably include a defining moment or key decision when they took a significant risk and thereby experienced a breakthrough.

Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.

I think that for many of us, the years of the Civil Rights movements - Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy running for president in 1968 to end the war and so forth - these were defining moment in terms of trying to hold government accountable and have a level of responsibility and truth-telling.

A defining moment in my life was my first actual VMA performance… That was the first time in my head I said I made it. Everybody knows who you are now. At that point everything in my life was flawless… I was just overwhelmed, I was happy, I was successful as an artist. I think I was in cruise control – like a little bit of bliss.

Hold'em - like life itself - has its defining moment. It's the flop. When you see the flop, you're looking at 71 percent of your hand, and the cost is only a single round of betting.

I knew going in that being a single parent would be one of the toughest jobs I'd ever have. I'd been a talk-show host, actor, comic, and on and on, but this gig was going to be my defining moment.

Once in a while - perhaps every 10 years, or even every generation - a novel appears that profoundly questions the way we look at the world, and at ourselves. Beijing Coma is a poetic examination not just of a country at a defining moment in its history, but of the universal right to remember and to hope. It is, in every sense, a landmark work of fiction

That defining moment at my friend's house, when his uncle looks in my eye and reads me the word of God, I have an awakening.

There was a race that I was running in Mexico City and I was the only high school athlete running against grown women. It was a professional race, but I ended up winning. That was kind of a turning point for me where I felt like, "Okay, I'm pretty good at this and there's a possibility for this to be a career for me." That was a defining moment for me.

Occasions for defining moments do not arise every day. When they do, we must seize the opportunities they present for improving everyone's life.

I think this is really a defining moment for the Arab world. The problem is, it is all going to be about blood, sweat and tears. In certain countries it may be just sweat, and in some countries sweat and tears, and in some countries, as you can see, a lot of blood. I think initial instability is something that we are all extremely nervous of.

In that inevitable, excruciatingly human moment, we are offered a powerful choice. This choice is perhaps one of the most vitally important choices we will ever make, and it determines the course of our lives from that moment forward. The choice is this: Will we interpret this loss as so unjust, unfair, and devastating that we feel punished, angry, forever and fatally wounded-- or, as our heart, torn apart, bleeds its anguish of sheer, wordless grief, will we somehow feel this loss as an opportunity to become more tender, more open, more passionately alive, more grateful for what remains?

In a story, you have to have a theme and an angle, you have to have a beginning, middle and an end. You have to have a defining moment and kick it to death. You gotta be able to recognize that, by the way. It probably takes experience.

I think one of the defining moments of adulthood is the realization that nobody's going to take care of you. That you have to do the heavy lifting while you're here. And when you don't, well, you suffer the consequences.

Abraham is trying to obey God, but not to kill. I feel that moment is one of the defining moments of Jewish faith.

There are defining moments in one's life when you learn about yourself, and you deposit that knowledge in the experience account, so you can draw on it at some later date.

Fashion is not just about trends. It's about political history. You can trace it from the ancient Romans to probably until the '80s, and you can see defining moments that were due either to revolutions or changes in politics.