Thomas Carlyle Quotes

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.

I'm barely prolific and incredibly lazy.

A lot of people in our generation like to make excuses about little things that really don't hinder them from doing what they want to. It always comes down to the work ethic.

If what needs to get done is going to get done, then I can't screw around with the luxury of writing rituals or waiting for pristine writing conditions to magically materialize.

When I am idle and shiftless, my affairs become confused; when I work, I get results ... not great results, but enough to encourage me.

Am I a slacker? I can be a slacker. When I was in college, most people got summer jobs for college or did research during college. I went home and watched TV the whole day for three months; it was really awesome.

I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.

My block was due to two overlapping factors: laziness and lack of discipline.

I love working. I feel guilty about doing nothing; I get bored.

I have no writing habit. I work when I feel like it, and I work when I have to - mostly the latter.

I think being idle is quite hard for me to do.

I have no discipline, which is a horrible flaw for any writer. Once I'm well started on a project, though, then I'm addicted to it all day long. When it's done, I collapse and have to really kick myself to start a new one.

You can't get anything done hanging out all day long.

Our own laziness taxes us more than kings...

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

I'm not the kind of person who works 24 hours a day, mostly out of laziness; I don't know.

I'm not a particularly disciplined person in terms of my work habits.

I'm a naturally lazy person, and I live for a challenge.

Laziness in my biggest pet peeve of all time. Get up, make a plan, do the work, and love yourself, people!

Either I need an assignment with a strict deadline - like something for a movie or a TV show or whatever - or else I need to create a made-up deadline for myself for my own records. Otherwise, I don't write anything.

Free time is the enemy of progress

In theory I can do almost anything; certainly I have been told how. In practice I do as little as possible. I pretend to myself that I would be quite happy in a hermit's cave, living on gruel, if someone else would make the gruel. Gruel, like so many other things, is beyond me.

It's actually true that I keep myself going by constantly promising myself that in response for the hard work I will be allowed to do some more hard work later on.

I would never finish a painting if I didn't have a deadline.

I have ideas every day, and if I'm not carrying a pad of paper, I'm typing it into the notes thing on my iPhone, and it's just ridiculous - idle hands are the devil's plaything, and I can't be the devil's plaything. I got to be the devil; I got to be the guy making it all happen.