At a conservative estimate, there are probably a million men and women in their twenties and thirties who would happily work long hours doing what most needs to be done, if they were paid something for it.
The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. ...
We aren't suggesting that mental instability or unhappiness makes one a better poet, or a poet at all; and contrary to the romantic notion of the artist suffering for his or her work, we think these writers achieved brilliance in spite of their suffe...
Try it out yourself. Test your idea with an experimental project. See what works and what doesn't. Then move forward or move on.
This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backwards ... was it possibly the root of all evil? No: of course the love of money was called that. But money itself—perhaps one valued i...
I’m saying that I can wait. For now. But when things get back to normal—assuming that ever happens—I want my shot. We can make each other happy, Faythe. I know it. And I’m done walking away from things I want just because they don’t come ea...
Overcoming procrastination is not, I repeat, not about cramming additional work into your day . . . overcoming procrastination is about simplifying your life to make space for the activities that matter most.
We’re a nonviolent collective working to undermine the Trust and free the Badlands. Once the Trust is exposed as lying and corrupt, we believe Edenites will do the right thing. Open the borders. Save the Badlands.” Ling lowers her voice with deli...
The Ph.D is one of the chosen who know that some things can never be fathomed, no matter how hard you try. What good are explanations? There is no possibility of explaining how such a work [Mozart's Requiem, in the instance] could ever have come into...
You just go around getting hung up on all the least convenient things--and if the only obstacle in your way is a little extra work, then that's the wonderful gift right there.
Hello? Do you see me? I'm working as creatively as possible and you want more and more and I'm out of juice and if you send me one more email I'm going to walk into the ocean and swallow water.
I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the li...
The more we listen to our hearts, the better our hearts' message comes through loud and clear and the more likely we are to be able to follow what our heart is telling us.
What a peculiar civilisation this was: inordinately rich, yet inclined to accrue its wealth through the sale of some astonishingly small and only distantly meaningful things, a civilisation torn and unable sensibly to adjudicate between the worthwhil...
It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern...
Women who are harassed, at work, on the street, or even online, are subject to the same rigid purity standards as women who are sexually assaulted, Just by virtue of being out in public, we're overstepping certain boundaries.
Creativity is a renewable resource. Challenge yourself every day. Be as creative as you like, as often as you want, because you can never run out. Experience and curiosity drive us to make unexpected, offbeat connections. It is these nonlinear steps ...
I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall— what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do.
I'm working on my own life story. I don't mean I'm putting it together; no, I'm taking it apart. If you'd wanted the narrative line you should have asked earlier, when I still knew everything and was more than willing to tell. That was before I disco...
There was an amazing party last night. I would have asked you to come with me, but the invitation read “Guest plus one.” Unfortunately, I wasn’t sent an invitation to be able to invite someone. I wasn’t even the “plus one.” But I did get ...
At first, the drudgery of mastering your craft is a prison—boring, slow, and with an awareness of how much time you’ll have to put in. But somewhere along your prison sentence, you come to see the time you put into your work not as dull and meage...
