Ken Jeong quotes: the MD-turned-entertainer speaks his mind.
“The only thing I have to offer in life is my passion. Find your passion.”
“You can have all the tools in the world but if you don’t genuinely believe in yourself, it’s useless.”
“Find your own passion and your own love, and be unique in your own way.”
“There’s really no substitute for working hard.”
“We’re all conditioned to work hard. You maximize the little opportunity you have.”
“Figure out what your act two is, and embrace the change.
Embrace the twists and the unexpected turns. Keep doing what you do.”
“There will be good, and there will be bad, but embrace that because you never know what happens.”
“There’s always downsides to every journey, but because of my education I have this core stability that makes me unshakable, no matter what happens, and I’m also able to take the good with the bad.”
“They say everything happens for a reason. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know everything happens. And it’s up to you to maximize the reality of your situation.”
“The best advice came from my wife. She told me that life is short and don’t be afraid to take chances.”
“Take chances, be brave.”
“You know what my biggest talent is? It’s persistence. I do not give up. I do not give up anything. If I’m passionate about it, I do not give up. I will stay until the very end to see something happen.”
“I have a very simple approach in career: you work with the people you love. When you’re working with your friends, it doesn’t feel like it’s work.”
“I think, at the end of the day, you should just be judged by your work, not on what effect it might have on the world or your community.”
“Own that sh*t, boy.”
“It’s so important to keep it grounded. I totally understand what that means.”
“I always just try to find a way to maximize whatever opportunity I have before me, but I also, I don’t want to limit myself to those things that I haven’t done. There might be some things similar to what I’ve done before that I can find some unique form of joy. So to me, I just want to find a way to just maximize the joy of whatever scenario.”
“What I’m learning as I get older, it’s just you know, man, it’s just nothing wrong with going with the flow and finding enjoyment and opportunity and happiness there because you’ll get it, and you’ll get happiness in the most unexpected places.”
“I’m the guy that no one knows, but everyone’s like, ‘You’re that guy in that film thing.'”
“I went to Duke, which is a top five school. Not community college. But whatever. I wasn’t sued out of medicine, I wasn’t arbitrated out of the profession.”
“Some people may know this, some people not: I used to be a doctor… and then I said, ‘F*ck that sh*t! I’ll be naked and famous in a movie, make some moolah.’ And that is what makes America great.”
“I always had a passion for performing, so even when I was in college (I was pre-med)… yeah, a lot of people don’t know this, but I was doing a lot of theater as well and I had gotten bitten by the acting bug in college. I never did any acting in high school or anything like that. I didn’t know I even had it in me to perform. So, I was definitely a late bloomer, and I didn’t know where I was going to go with this. All I knew was I just had a deep, deep love of performing. I felt like I had an aptitude for it, but more importantly, I had a passion for it.”
“I had a very complicated life, you know, or at least in my head I did, where I was in medicine, on a medical track, and it was a very, very heavy time because I basically had two loves and two passions and how to reconcile that? The only advice I could give is just don’t ever think about the end result. Doesn’t matter.”
“When I finished my residency in New Orleans, I went to L.A. where I would work as a doctor during the day, and then at night I would actually go to The Improv and do stand-up, all the while kind of cultivating my comedy resume.”
“I do think Dr. Ken, at its heart, is about a great doctor who’s a bit burned out. But even when I was a burned-out doctor, I was still happy and had a life outside of work.”
“I never let on I was a comedian. I never acted out. It was really important to me, like, to not be Patch Adams. I was so super serious as a doctor, I would bark orders to my nurses. I was hardcore. I wanted to make sure I did my job right. I was perfectly trained to be a physician. You know, it wasn’t a fluke. I worked hard at it.”
“During the day, I was a doctor. At night, you know, I was a comic. And it was really just to let off some steam. It just became my golf, you know, in many ways. Most doctors have golf as a hobby. Mine was doing comedy.”
“I always just loved to laugh. I always just loved it as a kid. Comedy was always an escape for me; I just happened to be a doctor.”
“If you’re a persistent soul artistically, you’ll find the truth of your art.”
“I always say Knocked Up opened the doors and Hangover just burst it wide open. To this day, it’s still surreal. And my wife’s a doctor. All our friends are doctors—our close friends. And it’s just that I have an odd job now. I think I’m like a doctor who had a detour, and I just have an odd job.”
“I’m not lying, every single project I’ve done, they’ve all been great.”
“I think working hard is my biggest talent. There are always people who are funnier and more talented than I am, but I don’t take anything for granted and I commit myself 100% to each of my roles.”
“Medicine really matured me as a person because, as a physician, you’re obviously dealing with life and death issues, issues much more serious than what we’re talking about in entertainment. You can’t get more serious than life and death. And if you can handle that, you can handle anything.”
“You can’t get through medical school if you don’t have a strong will and a strong constitution.”
“You just can’t take the doctor out of you.”
“I’m very blessed that I have such a supportive wife who is secure with letting me embarrass myself.”
“If I can still make it back home by eight to put the kids in bed, then wow—I am having my cake and eating it, too. Then I get to hang out with my wife for the rest of the night. That is my dream. That is all I really wanted.”
“Every child is different. They say acting is reacting, and I think it’s the same for being a parent. It’s about listening to your child… different personalities, different expectations, different goals. I think the key to being a good parent is to individualize your love for each child.”
“I’m on board with this too, that we tell our kids, ‘Look, I have an odd job, and the job is just slightly different but the principles of life is the same.'”
“We want them to pursue what they want to do. We want them to be disciplined at what they do, we want them to excel in school, but we also want them to follow their passions, whether it be in academics or in the arts or in athletics, whatever it is.”
“I think my legacy as a parent is encouraging my kids to think outside of the box. My whole livelihood is thinking outside the box and not doing something that’s typical, and I want my family, I want my kids to embrace their uniqueness, even if it’s something no one else does, or no one else thinks you can do.”
“I’m really trying not to feel I’m getting spoiled, because the way I look at it, I realize just how fortunate I am.”
“All right, my whole point is, the moral of the story is that I’m a rich person who just got richer. Yay, me. Yay, me.”
“I’m definitely a people pleaser. I like people to be happy around me and be comfortable. I go out of my way, sometimes to a fault, to make sure everyone is okay.”
“Everyone here has a unique story.”
“I keep moving no matter what, and I encourage you, good times and bad, keep moving, keep finding your passion, and I honestly say to every single soul, “If I can do this, and if I can do what I want, so can you.’ And you guys, you have the light, and the future, and the universe ahead of you.
And, honestly, your persistence and your passion is the most important talent to have.”
