Quotes on Done

Take the word for it of a man who has made his way inch by inch, and does not believe that we'll wake up to find our work done because we've lain all night a-dreaming of it; anything worth doing is devilish hard to do!

On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.

I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world, what death has done to my world.

For some, it was easier to take the leap from the leafless tree and dance on nothing until dancing was done.

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I tire of your whining.

I'm a mirror. If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don't like what you see, then you've done something. If I'm standoffish, that's because you are.

If you ask people what they've always wanted to do, most people haven't done it. That breaks my heart.

if she had ordered me to throw myself down then, I would have done it! If she had said it only as a joke, said it with contempt, spitting on me--even then I would have jumped!

You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?" "For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the cocaine bottle.

Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost before he has tasted freedom. The 'ologies' will tell you how its done Theology calls it building a conscience or developing a spirit of selflessness. Psychology calls it the growth of the superego. Considering how long society has been at it, you'd expect a better job. But the campaigns have been badly planned and the victory has never been secured.

Stuff Happens.’ That’s the G-rated version. That’s a bumper sticker that only a straight white upper middle class male could have made. Because anyone who isn’t straight, anyone who isn’t male, anyone who isn’t white, anyone who isn’t upper middle class knows that stuff doesn’t just happen. Stuff gets done by people to people. Nothing is a coincidence. Nothing is random. This isn’t osmosis. And so we act as if it’s this passive thing, but yet that’s not the case.

Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; With them forgive yourself.

He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the consequences which, in these wise moods, he had always foretold were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool of himself.

I'm in favor of changing the destination of humans. There are a lot of manned missions that can be done, but not in the direction of the moon.

George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day—another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.

Helmer: I would gladly work night and day for you. Nora- bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrafice his honor for the one he loves. Nora: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.

I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don't worry about doing it well yet, though. Just get it down.

Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.

I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.