Quotes About Dedication

Like an old gold-panning prospector, you must resign yourself to digging up a lot of sand from which you will later patiently wash out a few minute particles of gold ore.

You can't say, I won't write today because that excuse will extend into several days, then several months, then... you are not a writer anymore, just someone who dreams about being a writer.

Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.

In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.

Meanwhile, if these hours be dark at least do not let us sit deedless, like fools and fine gentlemen, thinking the common toil not good enough for us and beaten by the muddle; but rather let us work like good fellows trying by some dim candlelight to set our workshop ready against to-morrow's daylight. William Morris.

The simple things done consistently will produce the greatest results in your life.

If someone decides to be a musician now, it means because there is no hope of money at the end of it, it means they really want to be a musician. And if someone is writing now, there is no hope for money at the end of it.

Running a marathon is a fitting picture of youth ministry. It's not an easy task within the church. If it were, we'd have more youth workers than ushers. Youth ministry is filled with long, tiring, often unrewarding, complex, unique, intense, humorous, joy-filled, and painful experiences. Many within the body of Christ have entered the youth ministry marathon, but many quit before long, having lost joy and satisfaction. They're wounded and weary.

Football is my profession now. I'm getting married in August... It's a new experience for me as someone just getting out of college. I still have the same attitude about football I always had. I play hard. I enjoy practice. I'd rather be throwing in passing drills than sitting around and watching TV.

Most football players are temperamental. That's 90 percent temper and 10 percent mental.

You see football isn't just about 90 minutes, it's about passion and, yes, if you like, about life. We men will do things under the umbrella of football fandom that we would never dream of doing in any other sphere of life, and within the pages that follow I will try and explain why.

fact, he traveled nonstop for nearly forty-five years, covering three hundred thousand miles on horseback, crossing the Appalachian Mountains more than sixty times in the process, preaching sixteen thousand sermons, and ordaining four thousand Methodist preachers. He had no home—literally—and once told an English friend to address all future letters to him "in America.

One of the greatest inhibitions to the development of human potential is the aversion to effective practice.

Having already worked in publishing for a number of years, I was not naive when I entered the submission fray. I knew I would have only one chance to submit my fiction to my agent, and that she would have only one chance to submit it to publishers. So I held on to it, revising and polishing obsessively over twenty-three drafts before I shared it with my agent.

friends who could write novel after novel as effortlessly as a politician could lie,

Mom was an MD/PhD who worked as a genetic engineer. Dad was a Navy SEAL for four years before leaving to get a PhD in marine biology.

My heart wasn't in it.

I know you don't do what you do for medals, but there will be several coming your way.

He had read a description of the life of a novelist, and decided his life wasn't too far different. Writing is easy, Gene Fowler had famously observed. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

Extraordinary breakthroughs require extraordinary perseverance.

I'm pretty much a 9-to-5 kind of guy. I usually get to work about 8 in the morning, and I work until 4 or 5, and sometimes I work on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Pretty much I keep the same hours as an accountant or clerk or whatever.

on time, no matter what.

Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds. —Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

Read constantly. Read the kind of stuff you wish you could write. Read until your brain creaks.