Quotes About Mastery

When you watch your favorite guitarists play, notice how little their hands and fingers move sometimes. The economy of motion can't be overemphasized.

I think that's the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing.

I have always loved short stories. I have been at least as influenced by the short story masters as I have been by novelists.

Novelists have to be adept at controlling the flow of information, and, most crucially, they have to be in charge of the narrative.

Nowadays, to be a good world-ranked decathlete, you need to be good at everything.

I would be nowhere without martial arts. It's a passion.

I'm still very much in the apprentice stage of writing. I read somewhere that you need to write a million words before you know what you're doing - so I'm headed that way, but I'm nowhere near there.

When you go to Nashville and start co-writing, you start doing it as a job and the more you do it the better you get. You know if you build houses for 30 years you're better than you were the day you started. You know the ins and outs, you know all the nuances.

You work on something for so long that you become numb to it. Like, you don't even know how to listen to it because you listened to it so many times.

If I can be number one in the world without power hitting, then I don't need power hitting. But when I need to, I utilise it well.

There are many things that you just observe while watching Steyn. Just seeing him bowl is a great learning in itself.

In this business it takes time to be really good - and by that time, you're obsolete.

No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself.

Other than obvious errors like forgetting a line, often I can't see any difference between take one and take 20.

I've come second twice and I've played golf capable of winning the Masters on both of those occasions. I wasn't really back-dooring my way into a second place, I was right there playing great golf against guys playing their best golf.

The sure way to success is so simple, but it requires character, guts, persistence, the mastery of lower jobs to be ready for the better ones.

It is those who concentrates on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.

Thus, the first law I will obey, which precedeth all others is—I will form good habits and become their slave.

The Scroll Marked VI Today I will be master of my emotions.

Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.

In the realm of book arts, whenever a masterpiece is made, whenever a splendid picture makes my eyes water out of joy and causes a chill to run down my spine, I can be certain of the following: Two styles never brought together have come together to create something new and wondrous.

Orison Swett Marden

Nature hates all botched and half-finished work, and will pronounce her curse upon it.

The highest reputation in every department of human exertion is reserved for minds of one faculty, where no rival powers divide the empire of the soul, and where there is no variety of pursuits to distract and perplex its energies.