Drafting Process Quotes

That's your dream, to play professional baseball. When you get the opportunity like that, getting drafted - especially by Oakland, a California team, pretty close to home - it was tempting. At the time, I just didn't think I was ready or mature enough mentally or physically to start pro ball.

The very document that protects our liberties more than anything else, the Constitution, was, of course, drafted in total secrecy.

I want to be drafted to a team that knows exactly what they're getting.

I think that there are a lot of great studio people but the fewer voices in my head when I'm getting out a draft, the better. I just get it out and then I'll listen to all manner of good ideas. And that's what happens, too, when I'm touring and doing a character on stage.

You should always go through the first draft of a book all at once, I think, to get the best results. You can take time off after the first draft and come back to it fresh.

When you first start writing-and I think it's true for a lot of beginning writers-you're scared to death that if you don't get that sentence right that minute it's never going to show up again. And it isn't. But it doesn't matter-another one will, and it'll probably be better. And I don't mind writing badly for a couple of days because I know I can fix it-and fix it again and again and again, and it will be better.

I've done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.

It's hard to speculate, but it was tough when coach Paul Westphal drafted me and wanted me there and then got fired two weeks into my rookie year.

The Orioles drafted me. I did a lot for that community, I did a lot for the state, and they didn't show me a little bit of love.

I look at the N.B.A. as a job, a great job to have, so I think, for me, I would have loved the opportunity to go to the N.B.A. out of high school. If you're not ready, you're not ready. If you are ready, I think you should be able to go.

I played for Miami, with LeBron. They cut me. I got drafted by the Lakers, they traded me to Miami. Bron got there, they cut me. I remember it like it was yesterday. So yeah, it's a chip on my shoulder.

You get drafted, you perform like a Pro Bowler, then they pay you. But there's certain teams in this league, that's not what they're trying to do.

In Portland, I am more involved in the details of trade discussions because I've been around that sport longer and can watch tape and can give some input to the drafting process. In football, not at all. It's so specialized.

I'm pretty rigorous about the drafts I turn in. I don't turn in something that's so ungodly they go, 'What the hell is this?'

I used to say my biggest accomplishment was just getting drafted, whether it was the first pick or the 100th or whatever.

I don't think the Lakers really knew me when they first drafted me. They just saw my name and my size and my stats. They just picked somebody because they had to.

The draft is a crapshoot, so I've been very fortunate to be drafted by the Yankees, and to have spent my whole career here.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason. Think of it as the altar of the Muse Oblivion, to whom you sacrifice your botched first drafts, the tokens of your human imperfection.

Writing the first draft of a new story is incredibly difficult for me. I will happily do revisions, because once I can see the words on the page, I can go about ripping them up and moving scenes around. A blank page, though? Terrifying. I'm always angsty when I'm working my way through a first draft.

By the time I left college, I had won every award you could win - I was Mr. Man! Then I got drafted by the Giants, and you step in that locker room, and you feel inferior in every way. You just have to stick around long enough to give yourself the opportunity to build your confidence.

Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.

I like revising much, much better than getting down a first draft. The first draft is just getting the pieces to the puzzle. Then I get to put the puzzle together!

I didn't know if I was going to be drafted, period. I remember sitting there and just praying that whatever God has for me to happen, and I didn't get any calls from anybody else the whole round. And then I got a call from New England five hours after the draft started.

This afternoon, burn down the house. Tomorrow, pour critical water upon the simmering coals. Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow. But today-explode-f ly-apart-disint egrate! The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the hope that your joy will seek and find others in the world who, by reading your story, will catch fire, too?

I've never been able to do just one draft. That seems a wonderful thing. Do you know anyone who can?