Mary Oliver Quotes

Why would I retire from something I enjoy doing? I can hardly wait to get here.

To do this job, you really have to love what you're doing.

Going to work is probably my favorite thing to do. I do that five days a week for probably ten hours a day, but it doesn't even feel like work and it shouldn't. When you enjoy a job so much like I do, it's not work, it's play.

I love what I do, so I don't mind working.

I keep on working when other people are out having fun. But I love what I do and find it hard to stop.

Work? I never worked a day in my life. I always loved what I was doing, had a passion for it.

I don't think I've worked a day in my life.

Obviously, this is a job, it's a grind, but it's what you love to do. It's your passion.

What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it. . . . The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. . . . When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world.

I only am in this business because I enjoy it. I think that is the only way to be in the business.

If you cannot have fun on a set and enjoy what you're doing, you're better off giving it up.

I certainly can't complain. I work six days a week, if not seven, and eighteen hours out of twenty-four - fortunately, with a great deal of pleasure. Why? Because I only do something if I want to do it; I need to feel a desire, to find pleasure in moving forward, creating, moving, inventing.

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.

I love what I do. I work a lot, I work all the time, but I love it.

When you do something that you like, and you think you can keep doing it, you don't think about retiring.

When it ceases to be fun, I'll stop and just stay in my restaurants.

If I quit having fun, then it's time for me to quit working.

You feel stressed when you think that you are working. When I am doing movies, I don't feel that way at all. When I wake up in the morning and then get dressed up for the job, I feel good because this is what I want. I am the happiest that way and honestly, if at all I get a day or two off, I get restless.

Nothing is work unless you'd rather be doing something else.

Because, you know, it's never a hard work when you enjoy yourself. Look, I've been here since 57 years, and I don't have to explain why I've stayed so long. I always enjoyed it.

I wasn't obsessed by magic. People say, 'How you can you claim you practiced eight hours a day and weren't obsessed?' Well, people go to a job they don't even like for eight hours a day; it's not obsessive if it's something you like.

There's not much time to unwind, but you know what, it's because I love what I do. I look forward to the season. I look forward to playing games. It doesn't ever feel like work.

I've never thought of myself as a professional. I very rarely do something I don't enjoy.

Work has never really been work for me. It's been a natural extension of my life.

Can someone do music for 24 hours at a stretch and never get tired? It's me. Because I don't 'work'. I enjoy what am doing. It's not like a regular job.