Madeleine L'Engle Quotes

Inspiration is for amateurs.

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it.

Desire is the first thing a modern dancer should have. Skill can be developed. But if you don't have desire as a modern dancer, forget it.

Debra Winger doesn't let anything interfere with her performance, which is the way it should be.

Amateurs wait for inspiration. The real pros get up and go to work.

I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.

Dance has always been the center of who I am. It has given me the inspiration to help other people find a hobby, passion, and activity that fulfills them. It also taught me some of the many skills I need as an entrepreneur: a hard work ethic that takes practice to master and the confidence to persevere through any challenges.

I appreciate the level of professionalism and talent that I get to be around every night, eight times a week.

I'm just very impressed with the way Jimmy Anderson goes about his business.

I believe ability can get you to the top,” says coach John Wooden, “but it takes character to keep you there.… It’s so easy to … begin thinking you can just ‘turn it on’ automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you’re there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, ‘More than ability, they have character.'

The first rule of doing work that matters: Go to work on a regular basis.

The notion that I do my work here, now, like this, even when I do not feel like it, and especially when I do not feel like it, is very important. Because lots and lots of people are creative when they feel like it, but you are only going to become a professional if you do it when you don't feel like it. And that emotional waiver is why this is your work and not your hobby.

A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn't feel like it. An amateur is a man who can't do his job when he does feel like it.

Writing is grunt work - you need to have self-motivation, perseverance, and faith... talent is the smallest part of it.

Talent is cheap. What really matters is discipline.

[As a writer] you have to have the three D's: drive, discipline and desire. If you're missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it's going to be really hard to get anything done.

It doesn't take any talent to play hard.

Writing's not precious to me. It's not a thing that requires specific environment. You know, it's my job. Just like anybody with a job, you have to do your job when you don't feel like it, regardless of how good or bad the conditions are, regardless of how good or bad you might feel on any particular day.

We do not wait for inspiration. We work because we've jolly well got to. But when all is said and done, we toil at this particular job because it's turned out to be our particular job, and in a weird sort of way I suppose we may be said to like it.

Learn to write when you would rather sleep. Learn to exercise this gift of language when no conscious portion of your wits can vibrate anything but worry. Learn to write so, my son, and you can call yourself a writer.

There's a phrase, "sitzfleisch", which means just plain sitting on your ass and getting it done. Just showing up for work. My uncle Raphael was a painter, and he used to say, "If the muse is late for work, start without her". You have to be there. You have to be there, and do it, and grind it out, even when it is grinding and you know you're probably going to rewrite all this tomorrow.

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up

I'm a huge fan of Beyonce for so many reasons, and not the reasons that most people are. There's the obvious reasons - she's gorgeous, she's talented or whatever, but I think she's really super-consistent.