Quotes on Work

The work of an advertising agency is warmly and immediately human. It deals with human needs, wants, dreams and hopes. Its 'product' cannot be turned out on an assembly line.

There's no shame in a bronze medal. I used to think that, and I'm so ashamed of thinking that because there's so much joy and hard work and love in this.

Being acknowledged for your work is always a great accomplishment, whether it's people in my city, kids in the street, all the way up to the Grammys.

My work is not about paint. It's about paint at the service of something else. It is not about gooey, chest-beating, macho '50s abstraction that allows paint to sit up on the surface as subject matter about paint.

My work unblocks people, and then I look at the work that they do, and I think, 'My God, how could they not have known they were talented? How could they not have known?'

Eight years of work can be copied in six months. It wasn't inevitable that it was going to work. A stolen design is stolen time.

I wrote three books before I got one published. Most writers do. Have faith, and know that with each work you are getting better.

If you're interested in the job and in the kind of work that's done, you have to have an interest in who's going to fill your shoes.

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.

I won't call my work entertainment. It's exploring. It's asking questions of people, constantly. 'How much do you feel? How much do you know? Are you aware of this? Can you cope with this?' A good movie will ask you questions you don't already know the answers to. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?

In my line of work, the enemy gets a vote.

What lists and awards don't measure - and I feel this strongly - is the lasting value of any work of art. They're a snapshot of a moment, and one should always consider their judgments in that context.

One wants one's work to be the world, but of course it's never the world. The work is in the world; it never contains the whole thing.

Most work is not coming up with The Next Big Thing. Rather, it's improving the thing you already thought of six months - or six years - ago. It's the work of work.

I'm a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything. It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned to make that feeling work for me.

Trans folk, especially of color, should not be obligated to help cis folk play catch-up on our experiences. The effort can detract from our work to protect and liberate ourselves.

I'm a little bit of an eternal optimist. People always say to me, 'If you go do this and it fails, what are you going to do?' I don't care. I'm going to give it my best shot. That's what I'm going to do. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And I'll try again.

I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer.

I believe that the best cameraman is one who recognizes the source, the story, as the basis of his work.

'What is this', and 'How is this done?' are the first two questions to ask of any work of art. The second question immediately illuminates the first, but it often doesn't get asked. Perhaps it sounds too technical. Perhaps it sounds pedestrian.

The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative.