Quotes About Persistence

Work with all your heart, because—I promise—if you show up for your work day after day after day after day, you

You may want your work to be perfect, in other words; I just want mine to be finished.

Whenever I got those rejection letters, then, I would permit my ego to say aloud to whoever had signed it: "You think you can scare me off? I've got another eighty years to wear you down! There are people who haven't even been born yet who are gonna reject me someday—that's how long I plan to stick around.

Há uma piada italiana muito engraçada sobre um homem pobre que vai todos os dias à igreja rezar diante da estátua de um grande santo, implorando: «Querido santo, por favor, por favor, por favor... dá-me a graça de ganhar a lotaria.» Este lamento continua durante meses. Por fim, a estátua exasperada ganha vida, olha para ele e diz com um ar fatigado: «Meu filho, por favor, por favor, por favor... compra um bilhete.»

This proclamation of intent and entitlement is not something you can do just once and then expect miracles; it's something you must do daily, forever.

You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures

If you made something and it didn't work out, let it go. Remember that you're nothing but a beginner—even if you've been working on your craft for fifty years. We are all just beginners here, and we shall all die beginners. So let it go. Forget

you may be wondering how it was physically possible for us to drink more than we already did, but here is the thing about drinking: one can always drink more, if one is truly committed. It's just a mater of discipline, really.

Inspiration is always trying to work with me. So I sit there and I work, too.

Look for God like a man on fire looks for water.

Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.

the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding. I consider it as difficult to subdue as the wind.

Devotion is diligence without assurance.

Lastly, she knew one other thing, and this was the most important realization of all: she knew that the world was plainly divided into those who fought an unrelenting battle to live, and those who surrendered and died. This was a simple fact. This

Most of my writing life consist of nothing more than unglamorous, disciplined labor. I sit at my desk and I work like a farmer, and that's how it gets done.

The essential ingredients for creativity remain exactly the same for everybody: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust — and those elements are universally accessible.

You may spend your whole life following your curiosity and have absolutely nothing to show for it at the end except one thing. You will have the satisfaction of knowing that you passed your entire existence in devotion to the noble human virtue of inquisitiveness.

I work either way, you see - assisted or unassisted - because that is what you must do in order to live a fully creative life. I work steadily, and I always thank the process. Whether I am touched by grace or not, I thank creativity for allowing me to engage with it at all.

Curiosity is what keeps you working steadily, while hotter emotions may come and go.

I saw it as proof that you must never surrender, that no doesn't always mean no, and that miraculous turns of fate can happen to those who persist in showing up.

So the question is not so much What are you passionate about? The question is What are you passionate enough about that you can endure even the most disagreeable aspects of the work.

What's your favorite flavor of shit sandwich?

Onward ever, backward never.

Most individuals have never had enough time, and they've never had enough resources, and they've never had enough support or patronage or reward . . . and yet still they persist in creating. They persist because they care. They persist because they are called to be makers, by any means necessary.