Patricia Highsmith Quotes

If there's a deadline, I work late. If not, I like to have normal hours, and get up early and work. When things are going well, I hate to quit. And then I'll work 'till exhausted.

I would work until I got stuck, and I would put it down and pick up something else. I might be able to take a 20-minute nap and get to work again. That way, I was able to work about 10 hours a day... It was important to me to work every day. I managed to work on Christmas day, just to be able to say I worked 365 days a year.

When the time comes to work, I work.

On a regular basis if you're trying to produce something, I think you should work every day and set achievable goals.

I have always worked long hours and very hard. It is the way I am. Same as always. Up about seven and get to bed about 12 to 1, something like that.

When it is time to get to work, I go away completely and don't do anything except the work. And that can be 16 hours a day.

Do the day's work.

If I waited to be inspired to go to the gym, I'd never get there. I schedule my exercise time; I schedule my work time. This is especially important if you have a day job as I did while writing my first seven novels.

I try to keep a regular work schedule.

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

I don't think I would deliver the best work if I would do several projects at the same time. So it's one at a time, but I work a lot. I work nonstop actually, but that's what I like.

All successful individuals have become such by hard work; by improving moments before they pass into hours, and hours that other people may occupy in the pursuit of pleasure.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

I just have work to do; I just do it.

Out of my discomforts, which were small enough, grew one thing for which I have all my life been grateful, the formation of fixed habits of work.

Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.

I find myself more and more behind these days. You have to be really diligent. I don't have kids, which helps. I'm always working on something, whether a book, or a law review article that no one will ever read, or teaching. It pretty much means I work a lot, but it's all stuff I love.

When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.

I work hard and I party hard. When I go to work, I know what I am doing and I do it to the best of my abilities. When I party, I take exactly the same rule book with me.

I can handle a lot of work. I've always been able to. I'm a very focused individual. I come to my studio at about 7:30 in the morning and exit almost 5:00 P.M. In that time, those eight or nine hours, it's kind of laser focus on whatever I'm working on. There aren't really any distractions or anything.

To my mind, the best investment a young man starting out in business can possibly make is to give all his time, all his energies, to work - just plain, hard work.

You've got to get good habits of working hard so that when that play comes up during the regular season that you're able to complete it and do it the right way.

Work will take everything you give it. It's up to you to work out what you want to give it.

Across professions, consistency is a direct product of work ethic.

I don't take off as many days as most other producers and songwriters, so I'm working every single day, and I do songs every day. So it's just about finding time, scheduling, getting in and cutting the records. I make it happen and that's the name of the game. It's no excuses - you gotta figure it out.