"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
Will Rogers
"A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow."
George S. Patton
"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."
Johann Wolfgang Goethe
"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."
Sam Ewig
"A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations."
William Feather
"It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in."
Lord Chesterfield
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."
Johann Wolfgang Goethe
"Work expands to fill the time available for its completion."
C. Northcote Parkinson
"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
H. Jackson Brown
"Say not, when I have leisure I will study; you may not have leisure."
The Mishnah
"What I adore is supreme professionalism. I'm bored by writers who can write only when it's raining."
Noel Coward
"By making writing a part of your daily routine--just like brushing your teeth--you'll discipline yourself to work as a writer instead of a hobbyist who only writes when there's some fun to be had."
Theresa Grant
"The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work."
Robert Frost
"One hasn't become a writer until one has distilled writing into a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession. Writing has to be an obsession. It has to be something as organic, physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating."
Niyi Osundare
"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."
Gloria Steinem
"The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."
Mary Heaton Vorse
"Good work doesn't happen with inspiration. It comes with constant, often tedious and deliberate effort. If your vision of a writer involves sitting in a cafe, sipping an aperitif with one's fellow geniuses, become a drunk. It's easier and far less exhausting."
William Hefferman
"When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it’s going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day."
Alberto Moravia
"I get a fine warm feeling when I'm doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let's face it, writing is hell."
William Styron