Unstructured Work Quotes

I'm the only person I know who's never had a regular job.

I don't plan anything out, and I don't write in chronological order. The emotional tenor is what guides me, but a lot of it is feeling my way through the dark. That's okay if you have unlimited time to work and stumble upon things in a delightful way, but under a deadline, it can be really stressful.

Parents teach in the toughest school in the word: The School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, theclassroom teacher, and the janitor, all rolled into two. . . . There are few schools to train you for your job, and there is no general agreement on the curriculum. . . . You are on duty, or at least on call, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for at least 18 years for each child you have. Besides that, you have to contend with an administration that has two leaders or bosses, whichever the case may be.

I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom.

I would be doing anything to avoid a 9-5 job and high heels. Lifeguard, beach volleyball player, whatever.

If I have to write by a certain time, I can pull through, but usually I just let stuff happen, hanging out with comic friends - or bringing a basic idea on stage and seeing if it goes anywhere.

I love doing my podcast, but it's not my art form. I don't have to work on it. It's off the cuff.

There was a lot of improvisation on 'Step Brothers.' I remember it being really frightening, and it took me a long time to get used to it and grow to be able to hold my own. But I remember when it was done feeling like, 'I don't know if I ever want to go back to working another way.'

I realized early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. Because there are no pay grades and very little structure, people make interesting assumptions about the profession.

Aside from a brief stint as a writing tutor during graduate school, I have managed to avoid respectable employment all my adult life.

I see no thread running through my work; I simply get on with my life and my painting.

The Sennett system of making pictures was actually fun. You never knew what the person next to you was going to do.

If you don't think you want to go on a train and read the paper every day and work from nine to six at night, there was something about the uncertainty when I was younger which was very attractive.

Because I am kind of distracted, I don't tend to sit at my desk 9 to 5. It can be two hours a day, or, when I'm in the final editing stages, it can be 14 hours a day.

I don't really have a 9-5, which I love, as every day is so different.

When you work without a script, you are in a sense working in a much more improvisational way than when you are prepared totally.

I try to work in the mornings. Usually, I write in my pajamas and slowly assemble myself. I don't get organized and sit down and get dressed. I do the laundry. I drift in and out of writing.

I've been called a career hippie. I like that, I like that a lot.

I don't sit down at nine in the morning and begin writing and then take a break for lunch and stop at four. I have no structure like that. I am at my computer constantly, more or less attached to it. I live on-line and hate being off-line and don't care how unhealthy it is.

I had never worked in that environment where you're able to play.

I was a bachelor for a long time, and I got into all these really lazy habits work-wise. I'd just work as long as I wanted into the night. There was no structure.

When you are an actor every day kind of morphs into one as there is no set structure to my job.

I write music when I'm free and for no particular project in mind.

It's different when you're in a huge movie and you're being told that you can do whatever you want. It was also really cool because it helped me grow so much faster than I would have, if I did another thing where it was like, "Here's what you're saying, and that's it. Do not go off page."

I kind of go where the wind blows, and TV has just been how I make a living so far.