Quotes About Dedication

Too many musicians — singers and instrumentalists — performed it so many times that it's hard not to just go through the motions of playing (or singing) the notes, rather than remembering that you have to turn the notes into real music.

the very first thing that happens with any zealot is that he removes his brain just in case any thoughts that might challenge his zealotry should happen to stray into it.

I see you're closer to on time than usual!

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I am a marathoner. I love to run and I do it four times a week. I am in great shape and I look and feel like it. I never get tired when I run and I never quit before I finish my runs. I always feel strong when I run and I feel terrific after I get finished. I love the feeling of accomplishment and the anticipation of my next run. I am a marathoner.

Alex had cooked, and coaxed, and helped Mark form borders around the shapeless days. Alex had given meaning to the word servant.

I run because long after my footprints fade away, maybe I will have inspired a few to reject the easy path, hit the trails, put one foot in front of the other, and come to the same conclusion I did: I run because it always takes me where I want to go.

As long as my heart's still in it, I'll keep going. If the passion's there, why stop?... There'll likely be a point of diminishing returns, a point where my strength will begin to wane. Until then, I'll just keep plodding onward, putting one foot in front of the other to the best of my ability. Smiling the entire time.

I wasn't born with any innate talent. I've never been naturally gifted at anything. I always had to work at it. The only way I knew how to succeed was to try harder than anyone else. Dogged persistence is what got me through life. But here was something I was half-decent at. Being able to run great distances was the one thing I could offer the world. Others might be faster, but I could go longer. My strongest quality is that I never give up.

Want a strong, solid relationship that is willing to go the distance? Get to know your running shoes.

Sure I'm cut but not for the sake of vanity...

Once you permit yourself to compromise, you fail yourself.

Never, however, do I take shortcuts. There is not path of least resistance in my training. What I do equates to hard manual labor, disciplined grunt work. Once you permit yourself to compromise, you fail yourself. You might be able to fool some people, but you can never fool yourself. Your toughest critic is the one you face every morning in the mirror.

People who go to work every day, make sacrifices to raise families, and get through life without hurting other people if they can help it-those are the real heros.

But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...well, it's like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within. You can't just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.

I can do what I need to do. I can get where I want to go, no matter how hard it is.

The desire to write well can never be fulfilled without hard work.

You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn't enough, in the second half, you have to give what's left.

Use your blood to paint. Keep painting until you faint. Keep painting until you die.

When a man finds the woman he really loves, the one he respects and wants to call wife, there is nothing on earth he won't do for her. No mountain he won't hike. No river he won't wade. No door he won't open. She is Eve and there's not a snake crawling that can keep them apart.

People don't settle for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and agree to stand in it and believe in it.

Don't romanticise your 'vocation'. You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle'. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Sacrifice was nine tenths of parenting.

Early on, for better or worse, I chose whose child I wanted to be: the child of the novel. Almost everything else was subjugated to this ruling passion, reading stories. As a consequence, I can barely add a column of double digits, I have not the slightest idea of how a plane flies, I can't draw any better than a five-year-old.