Quotes & Sayings About A Hard Day's Work

It's really not that hard. If I do a Tonight Show, it's six or seven minutes. If I do a concert, it's 90 minutes. If I do an interview, that's 15 minutes. So by the end of the day I've done three hours worth of work. — Howie Mandel

They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour's work as for a day's. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the lamb ... — Frederick Buechner

We're all in it together, Harry. We're all pieces of the fisherman. I know that sounds like a bullshit answer, but you'll see, when you start to work with the dead. Everyone's complicit: the most innocent little kiddies; babies who live a day, an hour - they still have a hand in things, even their own deaths. I know that's very hard for you to get your head around right now, but take it from someone that's spent a lot of time with death. — Clive Barker

My code of life and conduct is simply this: work hard, play to the allowable limit, disregard equally the good and bad opinion of others, never do a friend a dirty trick, eat and drink what you feel like when you feel like, never grow indignant over anything, trust to tobacco for calm and serenity, bathe twice a day ... learn to play at least one musical instrument and then play it only in private, never allow one's self even a passing thought of death, never contradict anyone or seek to prove anything to anyone unless one gets paid for it in cold, hard coin, live the moment to the utmost of its possibilities, treat one's enemies with polite inconsideration, avoid persons who are chronically in need, and be satisfied with life always but never with one's self. — George Jean Nathan

Genius is often a short way of spelling hard work. Poverty, obscurity, struggle and ambition formed the foundation for many careers of transcendent achievement. Few marks are made in the world's history by eight-hour-day men ... Sir Joshua Reynolds had but one maxim for success: Work, work, work. Is not rigid and continuous training necessary for the making of strong athletes? Hard work is not fatal to real success. Vouloir c'est pouvoir. — B.C. Forbes

Make sure if you're working hard at something it's in a subject you actually want to remember something about ten years later. — Felicia Day

When I train, I love to take time off and fly to the Natural History Museum or an exhibition. I just love that. When you know your past, it will help you with your future ... That's why most of my friends are not fighters. Most of my friends are nerds like me. That's why I have a hard time finding a girlfriend. I need someone to talk science with. I'm married to my work right now. But you never know. One day I could wake up and just do something different. Life is so unpredictable. — Georges St-Pierre

Not a single thought managed to take shape in her mind: for the likeness of this day to the last seemed to her the clearest proof that it would be another quite useless day, a day she would gladly have done without. For a moment she thought that a day like this would be pointless for anyone on earth, then abruptly changed her mind as she realised that thousands of women, after a hard week's work, or a family quarrel, or even just after catching a cold, would envy her just for having the leisure to rest in comfort. — Ismail Kadare

They lay together in Seivarden's bunk - pressed close, the space was narrow. Ekalu angry - and terrified, heart rate elevated. Seivarden, between Ekalu and the wall, momentarily immobile with injured bewilderment. "It was a compliment!" Seivarden insisted. "The way provincial is an insult. Except what am I?" Seivarden, still shocked, didn't answer. "Every time you use that word, provincial, every time you make some remark about someone's low-class accent or unsophisticated vocabulary, you remind me that I'm provincial, that I'm low-class. That my accent and my vocabulary are hard work for me. When you laugh at your Amaats for rinsing their tea leaves you just remind me that cheap bricked tea tastes like home. And when you say things meant to compliment me, to tell me I'm not like any of that, it just reminds me that I don't belong here. And it's always something small but it's every day. — Ann Leckie

I think we should have a day off for Father's Day. Dads work very hard. And to be fair, a day off for Mums too, as they work hard. And more bank holidays. They rock. — Peter Andre

You need a long hard day's work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol. — Alain De Botton

A man is always a little shamefaced on his wedding day, like a fox caught in a baited trap, ensnared because his greed overcame his better judgment. The menfolk laughed at Charlie that spring day, and said he was caught for sure now. As the bride, I was praised and fussed over, as if I had won a prize or done something marvelous that no one ever did before, and I could not help feeling pleased and clever that I had managed to turn myself from an ordinary girl into a shining bride. Now I think it is a dirty lie. The man is the one who is winning the game that day, though they always pretend they are not, and the poor girl bride is led into a trap of hard work and harsh words, the ripping of childbirth and the drubbing of her man's fists. It is the end of being young, but no one tells her so. Instead they make over her, and tell her how lucky she is. I wonder do slaves get dressed up in finery on the day they are sold. — Sharyn McCrumb

You see, for me [art]'s not one of life's ornaments, rococo relaxation to be greeted affably after a day of hard work; I'm inverted on this : for me it's my very breath, the one thing necessary, and all else is excretion and a latrine. — Arno Hintjens

When you are doing a lot of hard fast field work, it's a physical necessity to forget every day. You can't try to remember it in any continuity. You get so burdened if you try to do it the other way. You can't dictate to your material ... We found our way in, slid in on the edges. We used our hunches. And it was hard, hard living. — Dorothea Lange

My only concern was to get home after a hard day's work. — Rosa Parks

has provided me with a platform to share my passion with millions in a way I neither expected nor could have imagined in my career. I hope that it's given the millions of people that I've touched the optimism and the desire to achieve their goals through hard work, perseverance, and positive attitude. Although I'm recognized with this tremendous honor of being in the Basketball Hall of Fame, I don't look at this moment as a defining end to my relationship with the game of basketball. It's simply a continuation of something that I started a long time ago. One day you might look up and see me playing the game at 50. (laughs) Oh, don't laugh. Never say never. Because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion. Thank you very much. Looking forward to it. — Nathan Aaseng

I'm a jet jockey and I've always escaped ever since I was a kid. I've always been a weekend type runaway person. Work hard, play hard type thing. It's not been a mid-life thing at all, it's been a habit because I think it changes your environment and how you feel even if it's for the day. It's a good thing. — John Travolta

... in Altruria every one works with his hands, so that the hard work shall not all fall to any one class; and this manual labor of each is sufficient to keep the body in health, as well as to earn a living. After the three, hours' work, which constitutes a day's work with us, is done, the young people have all sorts of games and sports, and they carry them as late into life as the temperament of each demands. — William Dean Howells

I mumbled something about how it was easy to calculate e to any power using that series (you just substitute the power for x). "Oh yeah?" they said, "Well, then, what's e to the 3.3?" said some joker - I think it was Tukey. I say, "That's easy. It's 27.11." Tukey knows it isn't so easy to compute all that in your head. "Hey! How'd you do that?" Another guy says, "You know Feynman, he's just faking it. It's not really right." They go to get a table, and while they're doing that, I put on a few more figures: "27.1126," I say. They find it in the table. "It's right! But how'd you do it!" "I just summed the series." "Nobody can sum the series that fast. You must just happen to know that one. How about e to the 3?" "Look," I say. "It's hard work! Only one a day!" "Hah! It's a fake!" they say, happily. "All right," I say, "It's 20.085. — Richard Feynman

Today's marriages become toxic, with resentments, after only a few years. It's one thing to say, 'I forgive,' but most lack the enterprise to do the necessary work that follows. It was the day after that proved who had the wisdom of God and who didn't.
pg 46 — Michael Ben Zehabe

By the way. You guys are both on leave for two weeks." God frowned. "Day needs to talk with the department shrink and do the mandatory six sessions and so do you," he ordered. God opened his mouth to argue, but was silenced by a thick palm raised and a hard glare. "This isn't up for debate. It's departmental procedure and you will both damn well follow it." God turned to leave again. "Hey, God." God watched the captain stand, walk from behind his desk; and extend his hand to him. "Damn good work today, son." God — A.E. Via

It's very frustrating making a picture in Paris. We work hard all day at the studio to get a love scene just right. Then, on my way home, I see couples on every street corner doing it better. — Bob Hope

It's hard work being a person, you have to do it every single day. — Carol Shields

You live in a world where you can drive through the drive-thru, flop down in a chair to work all day, and spend your evening on the couch, in front of the TV, before you crawl off to your cozy bed. Even if you work hard all day, your day-to-day living can make your body soft. And that softness is a modern-day killer, the equivalent of the savanna-dweller's lion (actually, the lion was better, since it kept people moving). — Cameron Diaz

Think they work you too hard? Think of poor Ali Sard. He has to mow grass in his uncle's backyard and its quick growing grass and it grows as he mows it the faster he mows it the faster he grows it. And all that his stingy old uncle will pay for his shoving mower around the hay is piffulous pay of two dooklas a day. And Ali can't live on such piffulous pay! — Dr. Seuss

By the yard it's hard, but inch by inch, anything's a cinch
A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step

In addition, to keep your energy levels at their highest, be careful
about what you eat. Start the day with a high protein, low fat and
low carbohydrate breakfast. Eat saladswith fish or chicken at lunch.
Avoid sugar, salt, white flour products or deserts. Avoid soft drinks
and candy bars or pastries. Feed yourself as you would feed a world
class athlete before a competition, because in many respects, that's
what you are before starting work each day — Brian Tracy

Day made quick work of drying his body, brushed his teeth, and walked back into the bedroom. God was already in bed, his large form taking up the entire right side of the California king-size mattress. The starch white sheet was draped loosely over his lower half. Day walked over and grabbed the two bottles of water and set them on his nightstand just in case he needed it. He climbed onto the tall bed and was grabbed by strong hands and settled on top of his naked lover.

"Cash," Day moaned.

"Shhh. Just need to hold you," God said quietly as he rested his chin on top of Day's wet hair and squeezed him hard against him, protecting him as if someone might come in the middle of the night and try to snatch him away.

Day rose and fell slightly with God's steady breaths. It was only nine thirty but it wasn't long before Day's exhaustion had him drifting off to sleep. — A.E. Via

A marriage is hard work and sometimes it's a bit of a bore. It's like housework. It's never finished. You've just got to grit your teeth and keep working away at it, day after day. — Liane Moriarty

After 1908, and especially after 1945, capitalist greed was somewhat reined in, not least due to the fear of Communism. Yet inequities are still rampant. The economic pie of 2014 is far larger than the pie of 1500, but it is distributed so unevenly that many African peasants and Indonesian labourers return home after a hard day's work with less food than did their ancestors 500 years ago. Much like the Agricultural Revolution, so too the growth of the modern economy might turn out to be a colossal fraud. The human species and the global economy may well keep growing, but many more individuals may live in hunger and want. Capitalism — Yuval Noah Harari

When taxpayers are subsidizing low wages, people should be aware of that. We're subsidizing an economy. We're not subsidizing people. They are doing a hard day's work. When we're not rewarding work actively, there's something wrong with the system. — Nancy Pelosi

It's a movie about everything. This world we live in. The bodies we're stuck with. The lives we get whether we want them or not. How hard you have to work just to get through a fucking day without killing yourself. — Lidia Yuknavitch

She's a-going," he says. "Her mind is set on it." It's a hard life on women, for a fact. Some women. I mind my mammy lived to be seventy or more. Worked every day, rain or shine; never a sick day since her last chap was born until one day she kind of looked around her and then she went and taken that lace-trimmed night-gown she had had forty-five years and never wore out of the chest and put it on and laid down on the bed and pulled the covers up and shut her eyes. "You all will have to look out for pa the best you can," she said. "I'm tired. — William Faulkner

If basketball was going to enable Bradley to make friends, to prove that a banker's son is as good as the next fellow, to prove that he could do without being the greatest-end-ever at Missouri, to prove that he was not chicken, and to live up to his mother's championship standards, and if he was going to have some moments left over to savor his delight in the game, he obviously needed considerable practice, so he borrowed keys to the gym and set a schedule for himself that he adhereded to for four full years - in the school year, three and a half hours every day after school, nine to five on Saturday, one-thirty to five on Sunday, and, in the summer, about three hours a day. — John McPhee

It's really important to find an hour or two to a day to make sure that you keep healthy, keep fit. It's very easy just to forget that aspect. And if you're feeling really good and fit, I think you can get two or three extra hours a day of hard work in as well. — Richard Branson

If you work hard all day and all night, something may come of it. You never know, it just might. — S.A. Tawks

I think of myself more as an actress. I do my music because I'm very passionate about my music. I love making music. I love inspiring people. I love making great songs that are just really fun. But that's all it usually is for me. I love touring and singing great songs. I don't think I'll ever win a Grammy one day, and I'm totally fine with that. I do work really hard when it comes to acting and I want to do that for a long time. — Selena Gomez

I always get a headache the first time I watch a movie I'm in. Because you're staring at the screen so hard, your brain is doing all this work trying to put things in context of what the day-to-day experience of making it was. And the timeline that's in your head of when it was made, and on what day, how you felt. And then you're also trying to grasp what it's been edited into. — John C. Reilly

It's hard to conceive of someone who could work for at least a few hours each day for months and years on the same story without it being close enough to their life experience to fuel their commitment. — Rafael Yglesias

It's physically hard for me to work. I start to break down, physically. My joints start. I get weepy eyes. I don't sleep well. I was never a hard worker, I guess. So the voiceover work ethic is really great for me - couple days a month, two hours a day. — H. Jon Benjamin

But it's not enough to just "discover" the meaning of life. What really matters is whether we live according to our values, and that takes hard work and a hundred hard choices every day. — Greg M. Epstein

I made a pleasant discovery. You work hard at something eight hours a day, you get better. Not a lot better necessarily, but a little better, and that's just fine, because improving at golf, or anything else probably, is just a matter of making an endless series of tiny improvements. — James Patterson

We go out to practice every single day and we have fun out there, but at the same time, we're getting work done. We're going hard. If it's reps for the scout team, we're giving them good reps. If we're getting reps for the first team as a tight end group as a whole, we try and go out there and put our best out there as a group effort. — Rob Gronkowski

can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day. We all empathize with a sleep-deprived mate who comes home from work too tired to talk, but it's harder to grasp that social overstimulation can be just as exhausting. It's also hard for introverts to understand just how hurtful their silence can be. I — Susan Cain

If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it's hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all? Similarly, when people do fail, this mind-set allows them to look outward. I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the "Obama economy" and how it had affected his life. I don't doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. His status in life is directly attributable to the choices he's made, and his life will improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices, he needs to live in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day. — J.D. Vance

While the opportunity to improve yourself and your situation is a great thing, our striving to build perfect lives seems to have morphed into perfectionism so focused on itself that we forget about others in the world. We work so hard to build the ultimate luxury sedan, to embody society's standard of beauty, and to achieve historical scientific breakthroughs that we conveniently forget our family members in other parts of the world who must walk miles each day in their only set of clothing for the opportunity to go to school. — Holly Sprink

Any kind of writing that's meaningful becomes hard work, so there were times when it would really flow, there were times when I'd get 10 pages a day, and then there were days when I would do three pages. Depends on the thickness of the material. If it's satisfying, it's hard, but it's pretty wonderful. — Steve Guttenberg

I would rather have one article a day of this sort; and these ten or twenty lines might readily represent a whole day's hard work in the way of concentrated, intense thinking and revision, polish of style, weighing of words. — Joseph Pulitzer

YOUR BEST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH.
That sounds harsh, and indeed it is. But having worked with the best of the best over the last two decades, I've learned what it takes to be the best.
Anyone can hit excellence for a day, even a week or a month. That's easy. But a high performer is one who does it consistently for years over the course of a career.
You can be talented, work hard, and do all the right things, and it might not be enough. Not anymore. These days, performance is about results. It's not just showing up every day, working hard, and doing the right things. That's great. That's expected. Performance is about showing up every day and hitting the bull's eye regardless of the situation. — Mark Verstegen

I'm not the sort of person who does my mathematics writing on paper. I do that at the last stage of the game. I do my mathematics in my head. I sit down for a hard day's work and I write nothing all day. I just think. And I walk up and down because that helps keep me awake, it keeps the blood circulating, and I think and think. — Michael Atiyah

Most people go to college to get a job, and here I am sitting in class with a job, making exponentially more than whoever's teaching me, you know what I'm saying? At the end of the day, I wanted to finish what I started, and make my mom proud. A lot of people put a lot of hard work and investment to allow me to go to school, and for me not to finish would have been like a slap in the face to my family and those people. — Mike Posner

I come from the heart land of New Zealand. A place where men are men and there is no such thing as a latte. Where a day's work is only done one way. THE HARD WAY. Where the vehicle you drive doesn't symbolize who you are. A place where a beer is a beer and it comes only one way, ICE COLD. Yes the great land I like to call home the Waikato but yes all this beauty comes at a price obviously where men actually act like men not knob head; makeup wearing, tight jean wearing homos there will always be a shortage of real women. So just as the last generation of real men, almost every weekend we head into every bar, club, party or music festival we can in the hopes of finding a real women. Don't get me wrong, bars clubs a music fests are the best fun ever. And I drink alcohol like it's going out of fashion not that we care about fashion round here. See you in the heart land — Daniel Anderson

Love isn't only love, sweetheart. It's hard work, and trust, and tears, with even a few glimpses of devastation. But at the end of each day, if you can still look at the person at your side and can't imagine anyone else you'd rather have there, the pain and heartache and the ups and downs of love are worth it. — Nicole Williams

Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation. — Calvin Coolidge

Natalie was going to stay at home, cooking meals, baking pies, and making sure their life together was comfortable. When Zach came home from a hard day's work, she wanted to be there for him, not coping with her own stress and fatigue. She knew some women would object to her decision, but this was her life, and she was going to live it as she chose. — Pamela Clare

If you take away the last few years, from my last year in Washington, and you think about my career, there was nothing but hard work. I was in the gym three or four times a day, working on my skills. If we lost a game, and I thought I played bad, I'm staying in the gym to keep shooting. That's what I did. That's what I was known for: I was a gym rat. — Gilbert Arenas

One day, a new ideal will arise, and there will be an end to all wars. I die convinced of this. It will need much hard work, but it will be achieved... The important thing, until that happens, is to hold one's banner high and to struggle... Without struggle there is no life. — Kathe Kollwitz

And so I love films that are kind of rural in atmosphere. And you know, it's just a nice place to be day after day. All be it, it can be hard, it can be hard work. You can get hot. — Keith Carradine

If I'm wearing jeans all day at work, it's [hard] to slip into a dress and make yourself feel like you were born in it. That sort of thing can really be the difference between a good look and a great look. You can have a great dress, but when you put it on and you feel like it's embodying who you are that day, that's not just fashion, that's style! — Debby Ryan

There's a lot of work that goes into it - if you think about how many collections a year that Karl Lagerfeld has to do, with Chanel and all the other things he does - you can't do that unless you are working 18 hours a day. It's really a lot of hard, hard work. — Penelope Cruz

I think it's easiest to teach by example. My dad didn't tell us to work hard; we just saw how hard he worked. I know I have shortcomings - like a short fuse - but I've learned you can't come home from a long day of work and snap at the kids. — Chris O'Donnell

Smiling for the first time all day, he came in to supper, slung an arm around Sophie's waist, and gave her a loud smack on the lips. "The cattle are settled in the summer pasture. Tomorrow I start working around the place, repairing and adding here and there. The men will be able to help, too. I hope you didn't do all the man's work yourself, Sophie darlin'. You did leave something for me, didn't you?" "Clay, you're filthy." Sophie slapped at Clay's chest, but he could tell by her grin that she was pleased with his attention. "It's hard work and honest dirt, darlin'. Let me share a little with you." Clay pulled her closer, but she jumped back, grabbed a ladle off the stove, and waved it threateningly at him, failing to suppress a smile. The girls started giggling, and maybe for the first time, Clay didn't mind it at all. — Mary Connealy

A woman's work, from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed, is as hard as a day at war, worse than a man's working day ... To men, women's work was like the rain-bringing clouds, or the rain itself. The task involved was carried out every day as regularly as sleep. So men were happy - men in the Middle Ages, men at the time of the Revolution, and men in 1986: everything in the garden was lovely. — Marguerite Duras

One of the realities of life is that few things of value ever come easy. A great marriage takes years of hard work - every day. There is never a time when I can say that I no longer need to work on being patient, tender, and conversant. I believe that marriage is forever, which means that you work through your problems and learn how to relate to each other no matter what it takes. Hog Hole marriages require daily effort and sacrifice. So do Hog Hole careers, friendships, children, and churches. It's never easy; few things of value ever are. A Hog Hole life is available to every person, but it takes determination, sacrifice, and work. In a word, discipline. — Bob Merritt

I'm loading a dump truck full of mulch for a landscaping job when my cell phone rings. It's hot day and I wipe the sweat off my brow while removing one of my work gloves. It's hard labor, no question, — Faith Sullivan

There are many designers who have much greater talent as a designer than I do, but they may not have my drive, they may not work as hard, they may not have the focus, the desire ... You have to have a talent because, at the end of the day, if the pants you design don't make someone's butt look great, they're not going to buy them. — Tom Ford

It's a job. When I'm writing I'm going to do it five to six days a week and I'm going to work for four to six hours a day. There's no magic writing fairy. It's just hard work. — Candace Bushnell

You just can't take a day for granted. We had to work really hard for anything, and so that's been instilled in me. And I don't look at myself as better than anybody else, because in an instant everything can change. — Alicia Keys

You know how when you step on court your coach is like "go go go!"? And all throughout you just keep telling yourself to hit harder and harder and keep at it? You know how much you treasure those five-minute timeouts? You know how good you feel at the end of a session? You know how you're glad you're tired? No pills, no shots, just plain energy. I want to work like that. Whether I have to write ten thousand words or send five hundred emails, brainstorm for hours at a time, I want to have that energy. To keep fighting. To know it's all worth it.
Oh, yeah. That's my perfect day. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

There's nothing attractive about doing a documentary. Nothing. It's hard, hard work, and I find having all the attention of the day on me a very unattractive proposition. — Elaine Stritch

Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. The trick of it, she told herself, is to be courageous and bold and make a difference. Not change the world exactly, just the bit around you. Go out there with your double-first, your passion and your new Smith Corona electric typewriter and work hard at ... something. Change lives through art maybe. Write beautifully. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible. — David Nicholls

Hoverboarding looks so fun, like being a bird. But actually doing it is hard work."
Shay shrugged. "Being a bird's probably hard work too. Flapping your wings all day, you know? — Scott Westerfeld

Writing isn't generally a lucrative source of income; only a few, exceptional writers reach the income levels associated with the best-sellers. Rather, most of us write because we can make a modest living, or even supplement our day jobs, doing something about which we feel passionately. Even at the worst of times, when nothing goes right, when the prose is clumsy and the ideas feel stale, at least we're doing something that we genuinely love. There's no other reason to work this hard, except that love. — Melissa Scott

I had dreamed that if this moment happened I would be elated and triumphant and flooded with relief, but when you have been keeping company with anxiety and fear for a long time it's hard to shake them off immediately. Also I hadn't really thought about anything behond the immediate goal: getting in. Now I was in and now I was going to have to do this thing, ballet, and not just think about the day I would do it. I realized I still wanted to dream about the person I would become, not actually be her. I was worried that I would work hard and nothing would happen, that I was as good as I would ever be. — Meg Howrey

I think that, at the end of the day, I'm drawn to a certain level of ambiguous storytelling that requires hard thought and work in the same way that the 'New York Times' crossword puzzle does: Sometimes you just want to put it down or throw it out the window, but there's a real rewarding sense if you feel like you've cracked it. — Damon Lindelof

Do you write every day?'
'Oh, no. Oh, I sort of try. I don't work very hard, really. Really I'm on vacation. All the time. Or you could say I work all the time, too. It comes to the same thing.' He'd said all this before, to others; he wondered if he'd said it to her. 'It's like weekend homework. Remember? There wasn't ever a time you absolutely had to do it - there was always Saturday, then Sunday - but then there wasn't ever a time when it wasn't there to do, too.'
'How awful.' ("Novelty") — John Crowley

Shalom is the Hebrew word for "peace." For rhythm. For everything lining up exactly how it was meant to line up. Shalom is happening in those moments when you are at the dinner table for hours with good friends, good food, and good wine. Shalom is when you hear or see something and can't quite explain it, but you know it's calling and stirring something deep inside of you. Shalom is a sunset, that sense of exhaustion yet satisfaction from a hard day's work, creating art that is bigger than itself. Shalom is enemies being reconciled by love. Shalom is when you are dancing to the rhythm of God's voice. — Jefferson Bethke

One day Mom came to my hospital room and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing me. I could already see tears forming in the corners of her eye. She said she had something to tell me. Whatever she was about to say was hard for her to get out. Her voice was noticeably shaky and her chin quivered as she spoke.
"Noah, I've got to leave and get back to work. And besides, I am helping you too much. You need to be doing more on your own." She couldn't hold it back at all and by the time she finished the second sentence the tears were streaming down her rosy cheeks.
After a few deep breaths, she continued, "But your dad is here, and you know Dad, he's not that helpful." We both laughed at that as she leaned forward on the bed and grabbed my hand. I told her that I understood and that yes, it was probably best because Dad would help but not too much. — Noah Galloway

People don't realize that doing a horror movie is hard work. You're out there all day screaming your lungs out, breathing in toxic make-up fumes, rolling around in the dirt, getting your eyebrows burned off - it's not like doing a sitcom. — Clint Howard

I don't attend an actual school but I'm still following through with high school. I do work with a tutor for about six hours a day. It's hard core but definitely worth it, and it's my main focus now - finishing up high school before I release my new album and apply to college. — Jojo

More often than not, at the end of the day (or a month, or a year), you realize that your initial idea was wrong, and you have to try something else. These are the moments of frustration and despair. You feel that you have wasted an enormous amount of time, with nothing to show for it. This is hard to stomach. But you can never give up. You go back to the drawing board, you analyze more data, you learn from your previous mistakes, you try to come up with a better idea. And every once in a while, suddenly, your idea starts to work. It's as if you had spent a fruitless day surfing, when you finally catch a wave: you try to hold on to it and ride it for as long as possible. At moments like this, you have to free your imagination and let the wave take you as far as it can. Even if the idea sounds totally crazy at first. — Edward Frenkel

People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day's work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably -why, then I don't think I deserve any reward for my hard day's work -for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good? — Herman Melville

I understand. You work very hard two days a week and you need a five-day weekend. That's normal. — Neil Simon

With the threat of failure looming, students with the growth mindset set instead mobilized their resources for learning. They told us that they, too, sometimes felt overwhelmed, but their response was to dig in and do what it takes. They were like George Danzig. Who? George Danzig was a graduate student in math at Berkeley. One day, as usual, he rushed in late to his math class and quickly copied the two homework problems from the blackboard. When he later went to do them, he found them very difficult, and it took him several days of hard work to crack them open and solve them. They turned out not to be homework problems at all. They were two famous math problems that had never been solved. — Carol S. Dweck

Things that remind me of Mother are these:
the truth 'mid deception, a warm summer breeze,
the calm within chaos, a stitch in a rip,
a comforting blanket, the smile on her lip,
an ocean of love in a heart big as whales,
the morals in everyday stories she tells,
a wink amid laughter, the wisdom in books,
the peace in humility, beauty in looks,
the light and the life in a ray of the sun,
the hard work accomplished disguised as pure fun,
concern in a handclasp, encouragement too,
the hope in a clear morning sky azure blue,
the power in prayers uttered soft and sincere,
the faith in a promise, and joy in a tear.
These things all attest to the wonder and grace
of my precious mother, none else could replace. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Fatness is a byproduct of the leisurely life your hard-working ancestors and the greatest minds of the Western world have been working to create for millennia They wanted you to have a life of plenty, a life without backbreaking work. Your great-great-great-grandfather would weep with joy at the sight of you half-conscious on a couch, having just shoveled a pile of fried noodles straight out of the takeout carton into your mouth after a busy day organizing the office's fantasy football league Surely my descendant has become a king! — Martin Cizmar

side. When she tries to explain her passion for it he reminds her how Anthony Trollope wrote all his books after a hard day's work at the Post Office. — Marcia Willett

It's hard work, writing, you know. Honestly, a fight every day against your own limitations. You have to squeeze books out of your brain, you're constantly trying to solve challenges. I think most writers enjoy the feeling of having written something, rather than the process of writing it. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Involve yourself every day. Work hard and figure out how to love acting all day, every day. It's getting into a made-up situation and making it good and making it real and just playing, just practicing and playing. Like the musicians that I played piano with: they never expect to be rich or famous, but they, for the sheer joy of it, play every day, all day. — Jeff Goldblum

Where a typical manager may set the deadline for the employee, Musk guides his engineers into taking ownership of their own delivery dates. "He doesn't say, 'You have to do this by Friday at two P.M.,'" Brogan said. "He says, 'I need the impossible done by Friday at two P.M. Can you do it?' Then, when you say yes, you are not working hard because he told you to. You're working hard for yourself. It's a distinction you can feel. You have signed up to do your own work." And by recruiting hundreds of bright, self-motivated people, SpaceX has maximized the power of the individual. One person putting in a sixteen-hour day ends up being much more effective than two people working eight-hour days together. The individual doesn't have to hold meetings, reach a consensus, or bring other people up to speed on a project. He just keeps working and working and working. The — Ashlee Vance

It's hard to think of yourself as a brand, especially when I have four daughters who kick my butt early in the morning every day before I go to work. — Harvey Weinstein

Religion has become to many merely a means of doing a little charity work, just to amuse them after a hard day's labour - they get five minutes religion to amuse them. This is the danger with the liberal thought. — Swami Vivekananda

Deliver me from all evildoers that talk nothing but sickness and failure. Grant me the companionship of men who think success and men who work for it. Loan me associates who cheerfully face the problems of a day and try hard to overcome them. Relieve me of all cynics and critics. Give me good health and the strength to be of real service to the world, and I'll get all that's good for me, and will what's left to those who want it. — William Feather

They'll get it all from you sooner or later 'cause they own this f**kin' place. It's a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people: white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. — George Carlin

Sometimes everything you know in the world turns out to be a lie. But at the end of the day the lie isn't what matters, it's what you do after you tell it. If you work hard enough you can make it true. — Hope Estheim

Time has to be converted, then, from chronos, mere chronological time, to kairos, a New Testament Greek word that has to do with opportunity, with moments that seem ripe for their intended purpose. Then, even while life continues to seem harried, while it continues to have hard moments, we say, "Something good is happening amid all this." We get glimpses of how God might be working out his purposes in our days. Time becomes not just something to get through or manipulate or manage, but the arena of God's work with us. Whatever happens - good things or bad, pleasant or problematic - we look and ask, "What might God be doing here?" We see the events of the day as continuing occasions to change the heart. Time points to Another and begins to speak to us of God. We — Henri J.M. Nouwen

The capacity of the brain to forsee the future has much to do with the fear of death.
For when the body is worn out and the brain is tired, the whole organism welcomes death. But it is difficult to understand how death can be welcome when you are young and strong, so that you come to regard it as a dread and terrible event. For the brain, in its immaterial way, looks into the future and conceives it a good to go on and on and on forever - not realizing that its own material would at last find the process intolerably tiresome. Not taking this into account, the brain fails to see that, being itself material and subject to change, its desires will change, and a time will come when death will be good. On a bright morning, after a good night's rest, you do not want to go to sleep. But after a hard day's work the sensation of dropping into unconsciousness is extraordinarily pleasant. — Alan W. Watts

At the office where the paper grows, she takes a break, drinks another coffee, and she finds it hard to stay awake. It's just another day. — Paul McCartney

The economic pie of 2014 is far larger than the pie of 1500, but it is distributed so unevenly that many African peasants and Indonesian labourers return home after a hard day's work with less food than did their ancestors 500 years ago. — Yuval Noah Harari

When you lose someone you love, it's hard to imagine that you'll ever feel better. That, one day, you'll manage to be in a good mood simply because the weather is nice or the barista at the coffee shop on the corner remembered your order.

But it does happen.

If you're patient and you work at it. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It's always something that's going to be a part of me. It's the reason why I work so hard each and every day. It's the reason I come to work dedicated to become the best that I can be. Nothing's going to come easy in life, and I've learned a lot of lessons, some the hard way, and I think just the things that I've been through have helped mold me into the person I am and what (is in) my future and that's continuing to do things the right way. — Michael Vick