Joseph Conrad Quotes

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.

I am a highly disciplined person. I get up at seven every morning and, still in my pajamas, sit down at my desk where my checkered ring binders and my fountain pen are ready for use. I try to write two pages every day.

Put 'going the extra mile' to work as part of one's daily habit

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.

I get up at 4:30 in the morning, seven days a week, no matter where I am in the world.

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.

Work is doing it. Discipline is doing it every day. Diligence is doing it well every day.

I work every day - or at least I force myself into office or room. I may get nothing done, but you don't earn bonuses without putting in time. Nothing may come for three months, but you don't earn the fourth without it.

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.

If you're going to undertake any project, like a book, you have to show up to give.

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

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.

I go to work the minute I open my eyes.

When things aren't working out, we have a tendency to say, 'Go do other things,' but you shouldn't do other things. You need to stay at your desk and continue to try to write. You need to insist on it.

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.

Discipline, work. Work, discipline.

I would teach from nine to four, sleep an hour, and write from six until midnight, night after night.

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

You can't get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.

I'm kind of a grinder.

I'm still in the gym every day for training, putting in the same hard work every week. That's the only way I know how to do it.

I just come every day, do my stuff before the game, work hard. You work hard, and it pays off.

I have a real worker-bee mentality. Just show up, just do it. Even if you feel like s--t and you think you're terrible and you'll never get better and it will never go anywhere, just show up and do it. And, eventually, something happens.

I know the most important faculty to develop is one for hard, continuous and varied work and living; but the difference between knowing this and doing anything consistent about it is often abysmal.

Talent is cheap. What really matters is discipline.