Waiting Tables Quotes

I was a waitress years ago when I was first trying to become an actress, waiting tables in New York City.

So much luck! I'm not putting myself down, I'm not saying I don't have talent - I must have, to have got this far - but I honestly believe that some of the greatest actors in America are tending bar and waiting tables and driving taxis, and it will never happen for them.

I have to say, doing theater, that's what you're trained to do. Doing film, when I first started doing it, felt like something else entirely. It felt like the difference between, I don't know, waiting tables and painting a great work of art. It's night and day. I didn't feel like it was even acting.

I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived... and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables.

Me, I was waiting tables of 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools, and taught elementary school.

The place I feel most at home is when I have health insurance. I really don't care how I get it, whether it's on film, or television or waiting tables, you know?

When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself.

I started out mopping floors, waiting tables, and tending bar at my dad's tavern. I put myself through school working odd jobs and night shifts. I poured my heart and soul into a small business. And when I saw how out-of-touch Washington had become with the core values of this great nation, I put my name forward and ran for office.

In Chicago it's really a case of the play's the thing - people are just so happy to be acting, you know? We were all actors - not like in New York or Los Angeles, where everyone says they are actors but they are actually waiting tables and hustling for spots in commercials.

When I was a struggling actress in New York in my 20s I worked in a burger joint called Diane's Uptown.  I actually loved waiting tables. I still keep who I was in my mind and never take anything for granted.

We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

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.

I want to quit. Not performing, but being a woman altogether. I want to throw my hands in the air, after reading a mean Twitter comment, and say, 'All right! You got it. You figured me out. I'm not pretty. I'm not thin. I do not deserve to use my voice. I'll start wearing a burqa and start waiting tables at a pancake house. All my self-worth is based on what you can see.' But then I think, F*** that ... I am a woman with thoughts and questions and s*** to say. I say if I'm beautiful. I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story - I will.

My dad and my uncles owned a bar outside of Cincinnati. I worked there growing up, mopping floors, waiting tables.

When I first got to L.A., I was stretching $20 a week, waiting tables, and I did that for about six months. I didn't mind it at all, I was really happy for that experience, but it made me really get aggressive about what I want. I've been doing this since I was eight, and never considered doing anything else, so I really had to kick it into gear.

In the creative arts you draw a special power. The discipline required is awesome to be an actor or an actress, to be really good, not just another one waiting tables.