Quotes on Work

Having traveled to parts of the world where war has done its usual nasty work on people's lives, I have come to develop a particular hatred for the shape, the look, the sound of the AK-47.

If analysis shows that someone's brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy - that is, a lack of manners.

Public education is the key civil rights issue of the 21st century. Our nation's knowledge-based economy demands that we provide young people from all backgrounds and circumstances with the education and skills necessary to become knowledge workers. If we don't, we run the risk of creating an even larger gap between the middle class and the poor. This gap threatens our democracy, our society and the economic future of America.

When I really have to push and grope and scratch and claw to make a story work, that's a telltale sign that maybe something conceptually isn't right.

Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here. A lot of work still remains, but I will see the end of child labor in my lifetime.

To retire is the beginning of death.

In my research, I've interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call 'different': scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

The president - every president - works for us. We don't work for him. We sometimes lose track of this, or rather get the balance wrong. Respect is due and must be palpable, but now and then you have to press, to either force them to be forthcoming or force them to reveal that they won't be.

No, we don't control who our parents are. We don't control what color we are. We don't control what home we are born into. But we control our attitude. We control our work ethic. We control our drive and our commitment.

There is a heavy emphasis in Mormonism on initiative, on responsibility, on a work ethic, and on education. If you take those elements together with a free-enterprise system, you've got the chemistry for a lot of industry.

When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him... For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth.

One of my great breaks is I have only done work I wanted to do.

I often use nameless places in my work as a way of allowing the readers to create more of the novel and to make it potentially about their experiences, what they know, a city that they have perhaps seen on television.

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.

An understanding of Sor Juana's work must include an understanding of the prohibitions her work confronts. Her speech leads us to what cannot be said, what cannot be said to an orthodoxy, the orthodoxy to a tribunal, and the tribunal to a sentence.

A writer wants something more than money for his work: he wants permanence.

Few revolutions succeed, and when they do, you often discover they did not gain what you hoped for, and you condemn yourself to perpetual fear, as the parties you defeated may always regain power and work for your ruin.

Maurice Sendak never - I remember he said something that was very striking because it's something I never thought about. I always loved his work, and he said, 'I don't really view myself as a children's book author. I just try and write about childhood as honestly as I can.'

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.

In each verse, a decision awaits us, and we can't choose to close our eyes and let instinct work on its own. Poetic instinct consists of an alert tension.

What makes the difference between a great player and just a normal player is dedication, work, commitment.