Quotes About Dedication

I'm one of those people who is actually inspired by a deadline. I might not sleep for many days on end, it may not be good for my health, but it definitely helps.

Even if I went off to some other career, I hope I would still be doing Coen films.

But it happens as often in following as in losing a vocation. Perhaps we were called to found, to organise, or to lead some little movement or society or a group in an existing society, or to take charge of a hospital or club or post—any such thing. We started with the one idea of serving God, but gradually the formalities, the necessary social life, the business side, has overcome us. From being an apostle we have become an organiser; from being an organiser, a business man or woman.

Come now, ladies. That's enough," he told them. "We have serious work to do here.

Norman Mailer was once asked how he felt when he wasn't working. "Edgy, I get into trouble," he replied. "I would say I'm wasting my substance completely when I'm not working." I feel the same way.

Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.

The trouble is not that players have sex the night before a game. It's that they stay out all night looking for it.

Look," Luke went on, "In all the years I've known him, there's always been exactly one place Simon wanted to be, and he's always fought like hell to make sure he got there and stayed there." "Where's that?" "Wherever you were.

Tell 'em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.

Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.

I'll give up this sort of touring madness certainly, but music-everything is based on music. No, I'll never stop my music.

Teach me, my God and King,In all things thee to seeAnd what I do in any thing,To do it as for thee.

Better never begin than never make an end.

Wherefore with my utmost art I will sing thee, And the cream of all my heart I will bring thee.

At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.

But recognition is often unsatisfying and fame is like sea-water for the thirsty. Love of your work, willingness to stay with it even in the absence of extrinsic reward, is good food and good drink.

The best horse, according to Suzuki, may be the worst horse. And the worst horse can be the best, for if it perseveres, it will have learned whatever it is practicing all the way to the marrow of its bones.

Where in our upbringing, our schooling, our career are we explicitly taught to value, to enjoy, even to love the plateau, the long stretch of diligent effort with no seeming progress?

The people we know as masters don't devote themselves to their particular skill just to get better at it. The truth is, they love to practice—and because of this they do get better.

Perhaps we'll never know how far the path can go, how much a human being can truly achieve, until we realize that the ultimate reward is not a gold medal but the path itself.

In the long run, the war against mastery, the path of patient, dedicated effort without attachment to immediate results, is a war that can't be won.

If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.

If you don't burn out at the end of each day, you're a bum.

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they're not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.