Willa Cather Quotes

Work first, and then rest.

Something you have to make...It's all work, work.

I don't work for a long time on anything. I don't have too much time in life.

I've read something that Bill Gates said about six months ago. He said, ‘I worked really, really hard in my 20s.’ And I know what he means, because I worked really, really hard in my 20s too. Literally, you know, 7 days a week, a lot of hours every day. And it actually is a wonderful thing to do, because you can get a lot done. But you can't do it forever, and you don't want to do it forever, and you have to come up with ways of figuring out what the most important things are and working with other people even more.

Some people can work on the road, and that's incredibly impressive... maybe I'm not working myself hard enough.

Long hours don't necessarily mean success.

Anyone who makes time frames beyond tomorrow probably isn't pushing himself hard enough.

Every day I'm not working or writing is a wasted day to me.

Today, I am wondering what would have happened to me by now, if, fifty years ago, some fluent talker had converted me to the theory of the eight-hour day and convinced me that it was not fair to my fellow-workers to put forth my best efforts in my work? I am glad that the eight-hour day had not been invented when I was a young man. If my life had been made up of eight-hour days, I don't believe I could have accomplished a great deal.

Live now. Procrastinate later.

When he worked, he really worked. But when he played, he really PLAYED.

Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.

As Shakespeare says, if you're going to do a thing you might as well pop right at it and get it over.

Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy - very busy - without being very effective.

I don't have time for any nonsense.

Fields can lie fallow but we can't; we have less time.

If it takes seven days to make a living, you ought to be doing something else.

I know what I want to get down and I haven't got much time to do it in.

Being busy does not always mean real work.

For me, time is everything, because from the time you wake up you have to have your heart and soul in this. You have to work through the day, you have to go to the gym, you have to eat, and yet you have to work as fast as possible to get home and get rest before the next day begins again.

Work hard, play hard.

The earlier, the more fun. Why put it off? It’s the atomic age!

If you don't have time, the truth is, you don't have priorities. Think harder; don't work harder.

I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom. Seventy-five of us worked twenty hours every day and slept only four hours - and thrived on it.