Quotes & Sayings About Days Off From Work

When the last autumn of Dickens's life was over, he continued to work through his final winter and into spring. This is how all of us writers give away the days and years and decades of our lives in exchange for stacks of paper with scratches and squiggles on them. And when Death calls, how many of us would trade all those pages, all that squandered lifetime-worth of painfully achieved scratches and squiggles, for just one more day, one more fully lived and experienced day? And what price would we writers pay for that one extra day spent with those we ignored while we were locked away scratching and squiggling in our arrogant years of solipsistic isolation?
Would we trade all those pages for a single hour? Or all of our books for one real minute? — Dan Simmons

Ka-Be is the Lager without the physical discomforts. So that, whoever still has some seeds of conscience, feels his conscience re-awaken; and in the long empty days, one speaks of other things than hunger and work and one begins to consider what they have made us become, how much they have taken away from us, what this life is. In this Ka-Be, an enclosure of relative peace, we have learnt that our personality is fragile, that it is much more in danger than our life; and the old wise ones, instead of warning us 'remember that you must die', would have done much better to remind us of this great danger that threatens us. If from inside the Lager, a message could have seeped out to free men, it would have been this: take care not to suffer in your own homes what is inflicted on us here. — Primo Levi

In the meantime, it is heartening to know that Christ's victory over Satan can be enforced now by means of prayer. Daniel prayed for twenty-one days, and finally the angel of Satan was defeated. Earthly victories depend on heavenly victories, and vice versa. We who battle evil on the earth are fellow warriors with the angels who battle evil in the invisible realms, and our prayers form a network of power and communication that work in tandem on both fronts. This means the praying church actually wields a strong hand in determining the outcome of human events. As someone has said, "It is not the mayors that make the world go 'round; it is the pray-ers. — David Jeremiah

Rash indeed is he who reckons on tomorrow, or happily on the days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past. — Sophocles

A sinner is justified and reconciled with God the moment he truly believes in the person and atoning work of Christ. However, the evidence that he truly believed and was genuinely converted in that moment is that he goes on believing and confessing all the days of his life. This is not to say that the true believer will be immune to doubts, free from failure, or unhindered in his growth to maturity. However, it does mean that the God who began a good work in him will continue perfecting that work until the final day.7 Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone.8 However, the evidence of saving faith is a genuine and enduring confession of the lordship of Jesus Christ throughout the believer's life. — Paul David Washer

It's just a shirt. I have no emotional connection to it or the band. I just didn't feel like coming to work topless today."
Camden's hand slammed down on the counter. "Shit, are there days that you come topless? I would like to make sure I'm here for that. — Ashlan Thomas

My kids are in school and in all these clubs - chess club, fashion club, you name it. When my dad came home from work, it was late, and when he left, it was early in the morning. On my days off, I'm still taking my kids to school and picking them up. I do what I have to do to keep that relationship. — Omar Dorsey

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you have the feeling of choice, if you feel free, you will be better off. And when I say better off I mean that if people feel they have control over their lives, they call in for fewer sick days from work. They have a lesser probability of having a heart attack or stroke. They live longer. They're happier. — Sheena Iyengar

I like cooking, but I don't think I could be a chef. Everyone from the ground up does terrible hours, whether you've just walked in off the street and you've got no experience, to whether you're the head chef. You can work 14 or 15-hour days. It's really, really intense. — James McAvoy

It's far more difficult being a small-business owner starting a business than it is for me with thousands of people working for us and 400 companies. Building a business from scratch is 24 hours, 7 days a week, divorces, it's difficult to hold your family life together, it's bloody hard work and only one word really matters - and that's surviving. — Richard Branson

Every time I create something, whether an idea or a work of art, initially, its supposed completion seems absolutely perfect to me. However the more I think about it, stare it down, the more it marinates in my soul over the hours, days, and weeks, the more flaws I start to find in it; and finally, the more I'm pressed to continue enhancing it. It essentially turns out that whatever thing a flawed and imperfect, human eye once thought was amazing begins to appear quite wretched. This is why, eternally, God cannot be impressed by mere talents or by mortal achievements. To perfect eyes, I imagine that great is not really that great; rather, humility is ultimately a human being's true greatness. — Criss Jami

My father, a bakery-truck driver, was the epitome of the work ethic that probably kept me knocking out columns six days a week for a rough total of 12,600 over 50 years. — Irv Kupcinet

She blew a stream of smoke up at the empty clotheslines. 'These silly dreams you have when you're young. I mean, what, Katie and Brendan Harris were going ot make a life in Las Vegas? How long would that little Eden have lasted? Maybe they'd be on their second trailer park, second kid, but it would have hit them sooner or later - life isn't happily ever after and golden sunsets and shit like that. It's work. The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves the burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But, shit, you roll up your sleeves and work - at everything -because that's what growing older is. — Dennis Lehane

You can't undo yesterday, you can work on today, tomorrow, you will wonder how you screwed up 2 days in a row — Eddie Long

You're going to work in this life, and you're going to play. And when the last days come, you'll look back and find that that's all there was, an endless stream of days going back to today. But if you can find the thing you should be doing, the thing that makes you you, and if you can make that thing yours, then you've beaten the game. I haven't. Most men don't. You probably won't either, but the point is to try, and to never give up, even when you think it's over. — Eric Garcia

For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, yet one the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow, and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer master, but an animal among animals; under the Martian heel. — H.G.Wells

A couple of days after the last time I saw him, I got a typically well-written postcard. He said that after he kissed me goodbye at LAX he was driving away and turned on the radio. Elvis was singing "It's Now or Never." In my personal religion, a faith cobbled together out of pop songs and books and movies, there is nothing closer to a sign from God than Elvis Presley telling you "tomorrow will be too late" at precisely the moment you drop off a girl you're not sure you want to drop off. Sitting on the stairs to my apartment, I read that card and wept. It said he heard the song and thought about running after me. But he didn't. And just as well
those mixed-faith marriages hardly ever work. An Elvis song coming out of the radio wasn't a sign from God to him, it was just another one of those corny pop tunes he could live without. — Sarah Vowell

I used to be a session musician before I was a wrestler. I played bass guitar. I was big pals with Lars Ulrich and he asked me if I wanted to play bass with Metallica in their early days but it didn't work out. — Hulk Hogan

I've been getting publishing royalties and stuff like that. I have just been lucky. They come in at the right time. Sometimes they don't, but I am not wealthy or anything like that. I just love to work. I would rather work three hundred and something days out of the year. I would rather be working. They don't know. I love playing. Then I can really get my music together. — Pharoah Sanders

Divine worship means the same thing where time is concerned, as the temple where space is concerned. "Temple" means ... that a particular piece of ground is specially reserved, and marked off from the remainder of the land which is used either for agriculture or habitation ... Similarly in divine worship a certain definite space of time is set aside from working hours and days ... and like the space allotted to the temple, is not used, is withdrawn from all merely utilitarian ends. — Josef Pieper

Some nights are three nights long,
some days a mere noon hour, then whistled
back to work, the heart dredging sludge. — Jim Harrison

Yes, take a little time to play And look at life the other way. God rested when the world was made: Rest now, old friend; be not afraid. But think not that your work is over, That you are now a foot-free rover, A rambler upon idle ways, Whittling away the golden days. For in the road climb to the goal There's no long furlough for a soul. There's no long pause: on every height Another summit swims in sight. The long road rises, scene by scene, With little restings in between. — Edwin Markham

Is it possible to run a big industrial corporation in a benevolent fashion? We see these days that even the hippest companies hide some rotten practices to make their profit margins work. — Ann Nocenti

And everyone drank too much coffee too, at the wrong times and for the wrong reasons. They drank it when they came in every morning to get going, and then again in the afternoon to keep going. They ran on caffeine fumes all day and never fucking got anywhere. Then they went home spent and empty and crashed in front of the TV every night and slept away the few hours they had for themselves. All these motherfuckers are always talking about the best ways to manage your time. The fact is any time spent at work not sleeping in the bathroom is wasted time, and it's hard to sleep when you're pumped full of caffeine. Everyone's awake for the wrong part of their lives. And by the weekend they're too exhausted from all the frantic, useless activity to even care, and it's only fucking two days off anyway. Nobody has the time or the energy to do what they really want, or to even figure out what that is. — Paul Neilan

I work seven days a week and I work about 12 hours a day, from the beginning of September to about the end of May; the school year. I take two days off, Christmas and New Year's, Thanksgiving sometimes - two and a half. And the result is that I bonded myself to my desk. — James Lipton

I am simply submerged in work from five in the morning to eleven at night; almost need a few days off to escape a breakdown! — Richard Neutra

Your ego's job isn't to serve you. Its only job is to keep itself in power. And right now, your ego's scared to death cuz it's about to get downsized. You keep up this spiritual path, baby, and that bad boy's days are numbered. Pretty soon your ego will be out of work, and your heart'll be making all the decisions. So your ego's fighting for its life, playing with your mind, trying to assert its authority, trying to keep you cornered off in a holding pen away from the rest of the universe. Don't listen to it. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Three days later, just as I set off for work, the postman handed me a letter. I opened it on the bus, thinking it might be an early birthday card from some distant cousin. It read, in computer- ized text:
Dear Clark,
This is to show you that I am not an entirely selfish arse. And I do appreciate your efforts.
Thank you.
Will
I laughed so hard the bus driver asked me if my lottery numbers had come up. — Jojo Moyes

She was quite pretty too in those days; indeed, perhaps she still was. But for some reason none of her boyfriends remained boyfriends for long. She had a very decided personality and fairly soon took to telling them what they should do with their lives and studies and work. She began to mother them or perhaps brother them (since she was something of a tomboy) - and this sooner or later took the edge off their romantic excitement. They even began to find her vivacity over-powering, and sooner or later edged away from her - with guilt on their side and pain on hers. This was a great pity, for Kalpana Gaur was a lively, affectionate, and intelligent woman, and deserved some recompense for the help and happiness she gave others — Vikram Seth

Back in my pulp-mag days, I worked from about 8:30 to noon, took an hour off for lunch, and worked again from one to three, for a work day of five and a half hours or so. I wrote 20 to 30 pages of copy in that time, doing it all first draft, so that I was able to produce a short story of 5,000-7,500 words in a single day. — Robert Silverberg

If you let anything infringe on your writing time, it will. And you won't get the writing done. Taking one day off can cost me five days of getting back in the mood. Going out to lunch can cost me anywhere from five hours to three days. And for me it's not worth it. For my own sense of well-being I have to finish my work before I can play. — Danielle Steel

Although, since days when we had been at school together, I had been seeing him on and off - very much on and off - for more than twenty years by this time, I found when I worked under him there were still comparatively unfamiliar sides to Widmerpool. Like most persons viewed through the eyes of a subordinate, his nature was to be appreciated with keener insight from below. This new angle of observation revealed, for example, how difficult he was to work with, particularly on account of a secretiveness that derived from perpetual fear, almost obsession, that tasks completed by himself might be attributed to the work of someone else. On that first morning at Division, Widmerpool spoke at length of his own methods. He was already sitting at his table when I arrived in the room. Removing his spectacles, he began to polish them vigorously, assuming at the same time a manner of hearty military geniality. — Anthony Powell

In my desperation to try to lull myself into a gentle sloom, I have created a list of things that will often assist my descent into delicious treacle-sleep. The list includes a series of things I can do if I go to bed and wake up early, and includes things like playing games and reading books, but one item that continually seems to work is telling myself:

The faster I go to sleep, the faster I can have cookies for breakfast.

This idea might seem rudimentary, but it staves off the sulks long enough that I can find a few hours of sleep, even on the hottest of days. If only Biscuit Power worked for other insomniacs, cookies might save humanity from itself. — Michelle Franklin

In August 1992, when the dog days were drawing to an end, I set off to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work. And in fact my hope was realized, up to a point; for I have seldom felt so carefree as I did then, walking for hours in the day through the thinly populated countryside, which stretches inland from the coast. — W.G. Sebald

What a country of lazy shits, with fucking hypocritical politicians claiming that people actually wanted to work if they could. Norwegians voted for the Socialist Party because it made it a human right to shirk their jobs, and who the hell wouldn't vote for a party that gave you three days off without a doctor's note, gave you carte blanche to sit at home and jerk off or go skiing or recover from a hangover? The Socialist Party knew, of course, what a perk this was, but still tried to appear responsible, preened themselves with their "trust in most people" and declared the right to malinger as some kind of social reform. The Progress Party was even more fucking infuriating, buying itself votes with tax cuts and hardly bothering to conceal the fact. — Jo Nesbo

In any case, what would be the point of having all that, and you, darling Eve, if I can't have time with you, away from your work and mine?"
"I could probably take a week."
"I was thinking four."
"Four? Four weeks? That's a month."
His eyes laughed over the rim of his cup. "Is it now? I believe you're right."
"I can't take a month off. A month is like ... a month."
"As opposed to what? A chicken?"
"Ha. Look, maybe I could stretch it to ten days, but - "
"Three weeks."
Her forehead furrowed.
"We had to cancel plans for a quick weekend away twice this year. Once for your work, once for mine. Three weeks."
"I couldn't take more than two, even - "
"Two and a half. We split the difference." He handed her a fork.
She frowned at it. "You were always going for the two and a half. — J.D. Robb

If you work diligently ... without saying to yourself beforehand, 'I want to make this or that,' if you work as though you were making a pair of shoes, without artistic preoccupation, you will not always find you do well. But the days you least expect it, you will find a subject which holds its own with the work of those who have gone before. — Vincent Van Gogh

No one prepared me for the stress and insanity of a week leading up to a movie. Years and years of work come down to three days. — Evan Daugherty

I am flying back to New York as I write this. I will never forget these wonderful 35 days and I would go back to Copenhagen in a heartbeat to work there again. — Tony Visconti

The customer service agents who accepted the defaults of Internet Explorer and Safari approached their job the same way. They stayed on script in sales calls and followed standard operating procedures for handling customer complaints. They saw their job descriptions as fixed, so when they were unhappy with their work, they started missing days, and eventually just quit. The employees who took the initiative to change their browsers to Firefox or Chrome approached their jobs differently. They looked for novel ways of selling to customers and addressing their concerns. When — Adam M. Grant

Most people spend most of their days doing what they do not want to do in order to earn the right, at times, to do what they may desire. — John Mason Brown

Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men, when it is not in relation to some common good, when by it thou art hindered from some other better work. — Marcus Aurelius

Nobody wants to hear that any aspect of my awesome life is bad. I get that. But there are days, maybe two or three times a year, when I get completely overwhelmed by my job and go to my office, lie on the floor, and cry for ten minutes. Then I think: Mindy, you have literally the best life in the world besides that hot lawyer who married George Clooney. This is what you dreamed about when you were a weird, determined little ten-year-old. There are more than a thousand people in one square mile of this studio who would kill to have this job. Get your ass up off the floor and go back into that writers' room, you weakling. Then I get up, pour myself a generous glass of whiskey and club soda, think about the sustained grit of my parents, and go back to work. — Mindy Kaling

Had you been a spectator during only the first three days of creation, you might not have judged it as good. What good are seed-bearing plants with no sun for photosynthesis? In His wisdom God knew the work was good because He knew what was coming next. He knows what's coming next for you. That's why He can judge His work in you as good. Give God room to be completely creative. Meet with Him daily as He unfolds the plan in perfect order. He's really good at what He does. — Beth Moore

One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days. — Bertrand Russell

Trying to make the presidency work these days is like trying to sew buttons on a custard pie. — James David Barber

When I was 15, I had lucky underwear. When that failed, I had a lucky hairdo, then a lucky race number, even lucky race days. After 15 years, I've found the secret to success is hard work. — Margaret Groos

Thanksgiving and Christmas then, for us who love God, are not mere time outs from work days. They are a celebration of the gift of work itself, days on which we celebrate work by declaring our freedom. In a manner of speaking we announce that on this one day we may rest from our work, and without pressure or guilt, we may be glad. A holiday is a holy day-meant for rejoicing in God. — Elisabeth Elliot

Because of his compassion Owen was always in trouble with his partners. They would have much preferred a tough, down-to-earth manager who would get a days work out of the little bastards. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Juggling work and parental responsibilities is no easy task, but I'm trying my best and just like everything else there are good days and there are bad days. — Ali Landry

He had cast out of heaven his dim star; it had fallen, and its track was lost in the darkness of night. It would never return to the sky again, because life was given only once and never came a second time. If he could have turned back the days and years of the past, he would have replaced the falsity with truth, the idleness with work, the boredom with happiness; he would have given back purity to those whom he had robbed of it. He would have found God and goodness, but that was as impossible as to put back the fallen star into the sky, and because it was impossible he was in despair. — Anton Chekhov

We fight for autonomy over so many areas of our lives - for decency and democracy and freedom, for suffrage, for the right to have some say over our lives, some control - and then in the central question of what we are to do with our days, with our working lives, we give all that freedom away in return for a pay cheque. And are content to be bored and obedient, resentful and uninvolved and tired. This is such a standard, universally accepted feature of the modern world - that we will dislike and be bored by our work - that we have forgotten to notice that it doesn't make any sense. — John Lanchester

I don't know what your Company is feeling as of today about the work of Dr. Alice Hamilton on benzol [benzene] poisoning. I know that back in the old days some of your boys used to think that she was a plain nuisance and just picking on you for luck. But I have a hunch that as you have learned more about the subject, men like your good self have grown to realize the debt that society owes her for her crusade. I am pretty sure that she has saved the lives of a great many girls in can-making plants and I would hate to think that you didn't agree with me. — Bradley Dewey

What does 'work' mean in this 21st, ultra-wired century, with its exploding new industries, low barriers to entry and endless possibilities? Is technology making our lives more flexible - or our days more endless? — Rachel Sklar

And if small businesspeople say they made it on their own, all they are saying is that nobody else worked seven days a week in their place. Nobody showed up in their place to open the door at five in the morning. Nobody did their thinking, and worrying, and sweating for them. — Paul Ryan

[On the socialites in New York in the Nineties who devoted themselves to politics, charities, and other volunteer work:] I never knew but one woman who devoted her life exclusively to the social game. She ended her days arranging dinner parties with paper dolls, a breakdown pitiful to watch. — Margaret Case Harriman

I have learned that real angels don't have gossamer white robes and Cherubic skin, they have calloused hands and smell of the days' sweat. — Richard Paul Evans

The World is three days: As for yesterday, it has vanished, along with all that was in it. As for tomorrow, you may never see it. As for today, it is yours, so work in it. — Hasan Of Basra

I work with a group of actors, and whenever one of us has an audition, we all get together, and we all work together on it. I think it takes us back to our film school days, our drama school days, us just working together and figuring it out because somebody else is going to see something in the material that you won't see. — Omar Dorsey

I'm not a nostalgic person for the glory days of 8-track sales at the local K-Mart. But there's a little bit of flattery and a little bit of horror. It's a mixture. It's like sublime shock and awe, but also terror. That's always the way I feel about how music flows through those types of networks. I'm mostly cool with it, but I definitely appreciate when people support the work. — Tim Hecker

I normally work out six days a week. I'll do Pilates on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and I'll do cardio on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. — Rachel Nichols

These days I don't look to other people with the objective of trying to steal their licks, although I've got no objections to stealing them if that seems like a good idea. I'm sure that I'm still influenced by Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen as well ... I can't play like Eddie Van Halen. I wish I could. I sat down to try some of those ideas and can't do it. I don't know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more. — David Gilmour

That split second I thought about the days when my mom used to work at the Grand Central Terminal candy shop. — Rick Riordan

Life in New Orleans is all about making the present--this moment, right now--as pleasant as possible. So New Orleanians, by and large, aren't tortured by the frenzy to achieve, acquire, and manage the unmanageable future. Their days are built around the things that other Americans have pushed out of their lives by incessant work: art, music, elaborate cooking, and--most of all--plenty of relaxed time with family and friends. Their jobs are really just the things they do to earn a little money; they're not the organiing principle of life. While this isn't a worldview particularly conducive to getting things done, getting things done isn't the most important thing in New Orleans. Living life is. Once you've tasted that, and especially if it's how you grew up, life everywhere else feels thin indeed. — Dan Baum

I work for two years on a book and it comes out and two days later I've got my first e-mail: When is the next one coming out? — George R R Martin