Margaret Atwood Quotes

I am the product of hustlers who taught me how to do it. They gave me a hustler's ambition. Not a bad thing to get from your parents. But hustling only gets you so far. You have to trust yourself. And you have to be ready to fall on your face and be okay when it happens.

Succeeding in life is a difficult business - you need to work 16 hours a day, face failures along the way, remember that nobody owes you a thing, and take risks.

I am incredibly lucky. I worked hard for my luck as well. I have made choices to do things because I wanted them to do them, not because they were the right thing to do.

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

I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes.

There is very little that is accidental in my work. I believe in serendipity for developments of plot, but the actual writing is arrived at by very hard work. The joy of writing doesn't mean that you don't get the backaches and headaches and the days when it's not coming.

Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet.

I mean, it's the life lessons that I suppose you learn that nobody gets a free ride and that you do the best you can with the means that you can and try to open yourself to as much knowledge and all that that you can.

I'm not striving for happiness, I'm trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constantly rethinking and re-evaluating what you're doing, working and working until it's finished.

I always hustled to make money and pay for school. I was never afraid of hard work.

I never tried to use anything besides my own sweat and blood and talent to get somewhere.

I accept challenges, I have always done that in writing.

I'm glad I dropped out of high school, man. I wouldn't be where I'm at. I would have had a net. I'm glad I didn't have anything to fall back on, man, because that made me go for my dreams that much harder.

You know, I think it's so ironic that we're calling hard work, striving for excellence, don't blame others, you know, don't give up, that we're calling these, quote, 'Chinese values,' 'cause I always thought of them as American values.

I've always been a workhorse, and I've been supporting myself since I was 15.

I never felt entitled to anything. I'm the hardest worker I know.

I did everything I could to stay in college and pay my own way, so I think that if success hadn't come so quickly, I would still be pursuing it.

I am a firm believer in if you can't get it the old fashioned way, you don't need it.

I've had to work by myself at combines before and forced myself to work out alone all the way back to high school. You have to be self-motivated.

In terms of instilling the values of mental toughness and work ethic, discipline is the gift that keeps on giving.

There's no real road map to L.A. Everyone's journey is different. You have to persevere and be willing to put everything in it. You have to stick it out. I don't really have a safety net, but what I do is put myself in the best possible position to succeed by working hard. Also, be careful who you let into your life.

My granddad was a hard worker, and my dad is, too. It was instilled in me as a kid. I never got pocket money; I had to earn it. I had two paper rounds before school, not just one. Wherever I worked, whether it was at football, in the pub, I'd do whatever was asked of me - and more.

It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win.

My father really told me, seriously, if you want something, you can have it, but you may have to work harder than anyone else around you.

I'm a big believer in personal responsibility. My life wasn't always peaches and roses. Where I am today is through a belief in hard work and never saying no.