Finishing It Quotes & Sayings

Everyone looks like they've just stepped out of a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting that he never got around to finishing because even he knew it was too over the top. It — Joe Queenan

[M]y first published book had just appeared in stores. The last year of my life
the year of finishing it, editing it, and seeing it through its various page-proof passes
ranks among the most unnerving of my young life. It has not felt good, or freeing. It has felt nerve-shreddingly disquieting. Publication simply allows one that much more to worry about. This cannot be said to aspiring writers often or sternly enough. Whatever they carry within themselves they believe publication cures will not, I can all but guarantee, be cured. You just wind up with new diseases. — Tom Bissell

It has often been said that [ ... ] the Japanese [are] geniuses at taking foreign ideas and adding a unique finishing touch. — Robert Reed

If you're going to start something-if it's worth starting-then it's worth finishing. That's what I live by. — Marshall Faulk

Instead, we did take our eye off the ball. We decided, instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, to go into Iraq. And today, unfortunately, if you look at the situation on the ground, it is a mess. — Chris Van Hollen

The narrative that Peter Jackson has put into 'The Battle of the Five Armies,' it stands alone as a film. Rather than just finishing off the story, it's like a whole new adventure all of its own. I'm very excited about it. — Richard C. Armitage

You're perfect," he said, finishing his thought as if she hadn't interrupted. "I don't care if you see dead wolves and turn into a living ice sculpture when you're having a bad day. I don't care if I have an imprint of your teeth on my shoulder. I don't care if you're ... fixed." He spat the word like it tasted bad. "I want you to be safe and happy. That's all. — Marissa Meyer

AmYou know, the spark. It could be as simple as a meeting of eyes or as intimate as knuckles skimming down flesh, but one thing it was unmistakable. No denying it once you'd felt it and no sense in trying to conjure one up if it wasn't there from the beginning. Sparks are beginnings, leading to middles of fireworks, finishing like blasts of dynamite. So, long story short, there were no sparks — Nicole Williams

Like my hero Virginia Woolf, I do lack confidence. I always find that the novel I'm finishing, even if it's turned out fairly well, is not the novel I had in my mind. I think a lot of writers must negotiate this, and if they don't admit it, they're not being honest. — Michael Cunningham

[ ... ] there exists around the written world opened by the work a multitude of other possible worlds, which we can complete by means of our images and our words. Denying oneself this work of completion in the name of some hypothetical fidelity to the work is bound to fail: we can indeed reject filling these gaps in a conscious way, but we cannot prevent our unconscious from finishing the work, according to its priorities and those of the era in which it was written. — Pierre Bayard

For you, it's gossip. For me, it's action. — Gail Carriger

If she wasn't his best friend ...
There really was no point in finishing that thought. She was and it was his job as the man in her life to kick the living shit out of any asshole that hurt her. — R.L. Mathewson

Normally with film, it's normal for the screenwriter to never be seen again after finishing until the premiere. — Jane Goldman

The extreme proposition on which Giacometti based all his mature work was that no reality ... could ever be shared. This is why he believed it impossible for a work to be finished. This is why the content of any work is not the nature of the figure or head portrayed but the incomplete history of him staring at it. — John Berger

They make Spy Kids, they make Scream, they make A Scary Movie. This doesn't do that, so it could be a very bad marriage. I'm trying to keep this potential nightmare quiet because we're just finishing editing. — Terry Gilliam

To be a pleasant person, you would at least need to see the point of being a pleasant person, or have it explained to you at some sort of 'finishing school' where you could actually learn the laws of propriety and the skills of appearing well-adapted, easygoing and attractively trouble free. But where do you learn these things? I don't know. — Michael Leunig

The Bush boom is alive and well. It's finishing up its sixth splendid year with many more years to come. — Lawrence Kudlow

In relay racing, there comes a great disappointment when those who are supposed to receive the baton to get to the finishing line do not get it from those who are supposed to hand off the baton. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Reading a book, for me at least, is like traveling in someone else's world. If it's a good book, then you feel comfortable and yet anxious to see what's going to happen to you there, what'll be around the next corner. But if it's a lousy book, then it's like going through Secaucus, New Jersey
it smells and you wish you weren't there, but since you've started the trip, you roll up the windows and breathe through your mouth until you're done. — Jonathan Carroll

The anti-feminism bacllash has been set off not by women's achievement of full equality but by the increased possibility that they might win it. It is a pre-emptive strike that stops women long before they reach the finishing line. — Susan Faludi

Deeply moved, she poured the tea while they were finishing up. They came into the kitchen to replace the cleaning things, and she handed two cups to Om.
Noticing the red rose borders, he started to point out her error, "The pink one's for us," then stopped. Her face told him she was aware of it.
"What?" she asked, taking the pink cup for herself, "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing," his voice caught . He turned away, hoping she did not see the film of water glaze his eyes. — Rohinton Mistry

Be ruthless in one important area: Yourself. Be ruthless about your commitment to Christ. Be ruthless about your intellectual growth. Be ruthless about finishing well. One of the biggest areas we should be ruthless about is our time. How much time do you spend complaining about your problems to people who can't help you solve them? How much time do you talk when you should be doing? When it comes to others, be gracious. But when it comes to you and your time, be ruthless. — Phil Cooke

The red velvet material was hard to work with, it pulled, and the style my mother had chosen was not easy either. She was not really a good sewer. She liked to make things; that is different. Whenever she could she tried to skip basting and pressing and she took no pride in the fine points of tailoring, the finishing of buttonholes and the overcasting of seams as, for instance, my aunt and my grandmother did. — Alice Munro

Up until doing this movie, I hadn't really paid a huge amount of attention to those genres, but after finishing this movie, it really gave me a different sense of appreciation of the way the movies play out. — Chiaki Kuriyama

war, instead of finishing in 1945, would have ended in 1948 had the Government Code and Cypher School not been able to read the Enigma cyphers and produce the Ultra intelligence." During this period of delay, additional lives would have been lost in Europe, and Hitler would have been able to make greater use of his V-weapons, inflicting damage throughout southern England. The historian David Kahn summarizes the impact of breaking Enigma: "It saved lives. Not only Allied and Russian lives but, by shortening the war, German, Italian, and Japanese lives as well. Some people alive after World War II might not have been but for these solutions. That is the debt that the world owes to the codebreakers; that is the crowning human value of their triumphs. — Simon Singh

Tailor's work
the finishing of men's outside garments
was the "trade" learned most frequently by women in [the 1820s and 1830s],and one or more of my older sisters worked at it; I think it must have been at home, for I somehow or somewhere got the idea, while I was a small child, that the chief end of woman was to make clothing for mankind. — Lucy Larcom

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art. — Marc Chagall

Fortunately for me, it's my most favorite drill, and that is finishing. However, from a young age, soccer players in this country are not taught how to properly finish, and I think you see that through the professional ranks, that we don't have that killer instinct of the forwards from other countries. — Landon Donovan

If you end up doing only one thing from this entire book, let it be this: stop being angry with yourself. That alone is enough to radically alter your health, your relationships, your job, and your life. Don't be angry with yourself for not saying the right thing. Don't be angry with yourself for forgetting to do something you said you would do. Don't be angry with yourself for not finishing that project as fast as everyone else at work. Don't be angry with yourself for finishing school late, for being unemployed, for being single. Don't be angry with yourself for not saying what you wanted to say or not doing what you wanted to do. Regardless of what choices you have made, let go of the habit of self-anger. It doesn't serve you. It never has and it never will. — Emily Maroutian

I'm always astonished whenever I finish anything. Astonished and depressed. My desire for perfection should prevent me from ever finishing anything; it should prevent me even from starting. — Fernando Pessoa

What we got is NOW, Huck, and now is forever. Until it ain't. So, you can't worry over nothing except putting off the end a your story as long as you can, and finishing it with a bang. — Robert Coover

A good, finished scandal, fully armed and equipped, such as circulates in the world, is rarely the production of a single individual, or even of a single coterie. It sees the light in one; is rocked and nurtured in another; is petted, developed, and attains its growth in a third; and receives its finishing touches only after passing through a multitude of hands. It is a child that can count a host of fathers
all ready to disown it. — Sophie Swetchine

He pilfered a copy of Ulysses, but it was possibly the one book he did not finish. 'What's the point of it? I suspect it was a bit of a joke by Joyce. He just kept his mouth shut as people read into it more then there was. Pseudo-intellectuals love to drop the name Ulysses as their favorite book. I refused to be intellectually bullied into finishing it. — Michael Finkel

It was like starting to write a novel. When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages a sick sense of failure falls on me and I know I can never do it. This happens every time. Then gradually I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate and I eliminate the possibility of ever finishing. So — John Steinbeck

Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions. — Oscar Hammerstein II

Ginger used her trusty pink scissors to cut out the headline Is Your Vagina Angry? from a newly purchased women's magazine, spread glue on the back, and pasted it over the picture of a nun looking thoughtful. She had a sick sense of humor. So sue her. She stepped back and admired the decoupage nightstand she'd been working on all day. Get Thee to a Nunnery, she'd named this particular one. After a few finishing touches, it would be ready for a coat of lacquer. — Tessa Bailey

I thought, man, if you could run 100 miles, you'd be in this Zen state. You'd be the f**king Buddha. Bringing peace and a smile to the world. In my case, it didn't work. I'm the same old punk ass as ever. But there's always this hope that it'll turn you into the person you want to be. You know, like a better, more peaceful person. And when I'm out on a long run, the only thing in life that matters is finishing the run. For once, my brain isn't going 'bleh bleh bleh bleh.' Everything just quiets down, and the only thing going on is pure flow — Jenn Shelton

We do like digital projection. We like shooting on film, finishing digitally, and projection digitally. That's what I like best. It's still a movie. It's not someone's camcorder and it got projected. That's mean, I know. — Zack Snyder

One always has to spoil a picture a little bit, in order to finish it. — Eugene Delacroix

A Centaur has a man-stomach and a horse-stomach. And of course both want breakfast. So first of all he has porridge and pavenders and kidneys and bacon and omlette and cold ham and toast and marmalade and coffee and beer. And after that he tends to the horse part of himself by grazing for an hour or so and finishing up with a hot mash, some oats, and a bag of sugar. That's why it's such a serious thing to ask a Centaur to stay for the weeekend. A very serious thing indeed. — C.S. Lewis

It is a peculiar thing to believe that you know someone intimately only to find that you really do not. It is like finishing a book only to discover that you have missed several key chapters.
THE LETTER Chapter 9 page 104 — Richard Paul Evans

But as much as life is sometimes about knowing what you want and going after it and finishing, maybe other times it's about slowing down and shutting up and waiting. There's not always a clear beginning and obvious end. Sometimes we're in the middle . . . and it's okay to camp out there for a while. — Melissa Tagg

The best transactions in families or between friends occur on the fly. They come as stochastic shocks, or serendipities.

People often step out onto our path as we are hurrying to a meeting or intent on finishing a project, and it usually turns out that the meeting or the project was inconsequential compared to the chance to get closer to someone we cared for. — Alan Loy McGinnis

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

The next morning after finishing my interviews, I found myself with some time to kill before the bus arrived to return me to Whitby.

The term "time to kill" suddenly sounded awfully harsh.

Was "time to waste" better? No, "waste" is so un-Benedictine.

"Time to spend"? Too much of a material ring.

"Time to bum around?" Yes, it had just the right balance of self-effacement and no fixed address. Like Jesus. — Jane Christmas

If you find that you start a number of stories or pieces that you don't ever bother finishing, that you lose interest or faith in them along the way, it may be that there is nothing at their center about which you care passionately. — Anne Lamott

It didn't feel sporting to shoot at a crazy person, even if that person was a vampire who'd agreed to the job. — Gail Carriger

I've always said that my ideal reader would be someone who after finishing one of my novels would throw it out the window, presumably from an upper floor of an apartment building in New York, and by the time it had landed would be taking the elevator down to retrieve it. — Harry Mathews

There's a reason why you never see large-chested women finishing marathons first. They've been beaten to death by their breasts around Mile 5. It ain't pretty. — Dawn Dais

Homework strongly indicates that the teachers are not doing their jobs well enough during the school day. It's not like they'll let you bring your home stuff to school and work on it there. You can't say, 'I didn't finish sleeping at home, so I have to work on finishing my sleep here. — Jim Benton

Oh, and one more thing: if I try something that I've never done before, something that's particularly difficult for me, and it doesn't work out, that doesn't make it a failure. The fact that I actually succeeded in finishing it makes it a huge success. Think of all the people that never even try. — Sebastian Cole

At first it was difficult for me to draw. My right hand doesn't work anymore so I had to train myself to use my left hand. But I persevered. The first one I ended up finishing was the duck. — Edwyn Collins

To me she looks like a big black ant - a big black ant in an original Christian Lacroix - eating a urinal cake and I almost start laughing, but I also want to keep her at ease. I don't want her to get second thoughts about finishing the urinal cake. But she can't eat any more and with only two bites taken, pretending to be full, she pushes the tainted plate away, and at this moment I start feeling strange. Even though I marveled at her eating that thing, it also makes me sad and suddenly I'm reminded that no matter how satisfying it was to see Evelyn eating something I, and countless others, had pissed on, in the end the displeasure it caused her was at my expense - it's an anticlimax, a futile excuse to put up with her for three hours. — Bret Easton Ellis

When I went to college, I did clothing and textiles. It really wasn't until I moved to New York, my second night in, I did stand-up. I took a wild left turn, and instead of going back and finishing school at FIT, I started doing stand-up and acting. — Melissa McCarthy

Read a book without thinking about finishing it. Just read it. Enjoy every word, sentence, and paragraph. Don't wish for it to end, or for it to never end. — Matt Haig

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value. — Leslie Jamison

Cairn Stone
This is the rock he lifted
to lay upon a cairn
in a high place.
This rock, warmed by the near sun,
felt right, somehow, in his hand.
He decided to carry it down
to his mother, who lay in bed,
recovering.
It is so easy to please
a mother. Just to think of her
for a moment, from a high place,
and to carry that thought to her
in the form of a stone. — Claudia Putnam

I've never written a book, except my first, without at some point considering that I might die before it was completed. This is all part of the superstition, the folklore, the mania of the business, the fetishistic fuss ... Dying in the middle of a wo(rd), or three-fifths of the way through a nov(el). My friend the nov(el)ist Brian Moore used to fear this as well, though for an extra reason: "Because some bastard will come along and finish it for you." Here is a novelist's would-you-rather. Would you rather die in the middle of a book, and have some bastard finish it for you, or leave behind a work in progress that not a single bastard in the whole world was remotely interested in finishing? — Julian Barnes

I'm writing all the time. I tend to work on at least two books simultaneously. I'll spend time with one, and then I'll spend time with the other. Finishing takes whatever time it takes. — Alice McDermott

Every man is proud of what he does well; and no man is proud of what he does not do well. With the former, his heart is in his work; and he will do twice as much of it with less fatigue. The latter performs a little imperfectly, looks at it in disgust, turns from it, and imagines himself exceedingly tired. The little he has done, comes to nothing, for want of finishing. — Abraham Lincoln

If it were possible for any one person or group of persons to go through a photographic finishing plant's work at the end of a day, you could probably pull out the most extraordinary photographic exhibition we've ever seen. On almost any subject. The trouble is to find the things. — Edward Steichen

Not finishing is incrediable... it's open end!? — Deyth Banger

To write it down was to put the finishing touch on any event, see what it was, what it meant, what it stood for. To put anything into words was like pouring melted wax on top of cold glasses of jelly, to harden there and preserve and keep what was underneath like new. — Ardyth Kennelly

So what is it really like? What happens when people die? Noor asks Alice Bhatti, who after finishing her shift has changed into a loose maxi and is lying down on a wheelie stretcher, her forearm covering her eyes. A half-torn poster on the wall behind the stretcher says : Bhai, your blood will bring a revolution. Someone has scrawled under it with a marker: And that revolution will bring more blood. Someone has added Insha'allah in an attempt to introduce divine intervention into the proceedings. Some more down-to-earth soul has tried to give this revolution a direction, and drawn an arrow underneath and scribbled, Bhai, the Blood Bank is in Block C. — Mohammed Hanif

I can't muster a smile. Even with the knowledge that it's dark outside and light up here, it's hard to believe that he can see us. We should be invisible. We are so alone. Mabel and I are standing side by side, but we can't even see each other. In the distance are the lights of town. People must be finishing their workdays, picking up their kids, figuring out dinner. They're talking to one another in easy voices about things of great significance and things that don't mean much. The distance between us and all of that living feels insurmountable. — Nina LaCour

I think it started with both the shows and the box set from finishing White Material. I think we were also pretty desperate to get it released. We felt pretty proud of it, and it just escalated from there. We were thinking about playing some live shows, doing the soundtracks live. It was just trying to shine a little light on this 15 years of work we've done. — Stuart A. Staples

It's no small feat, finishing a journey," I tell her. "But no one ever mentions that once you get there, you will have to turn around and head all the way home. — Jodi Picoult

Just across from Bismarck stood Fort Lincoln where friends and relatives of Custer's dead cavalrymen still lived, and these emigrating Sioux could perceive such bitterness in the air that one Indian on the leading boat displayed a white flag. Yet, in accordance with the laws of human behavior, the farther downstream they traveled the less hostility they encountered, and when the tiny armada reached Standing Rock near the present border of South Dakota these Indians were welcomed as celebrities. Men, women and children crowded aboard the General Sherman to shake hands with Sitting Bull. Judson Elliot Walker, who was just then finishing a book on Custer's campaigns, had to stand on a chair to catch a glimpse of the medicine man and reports that he was wearing "green wire goggles." No details are provided, so green wire goggles must have been a familiar sight in those days. Sitting Bull mobbed by fans while wearing green wire goggles. It sounds like Hollywood. — Evan S. Connell

When I'm out on a long run," she continued, "the only thing in life that matters is finishing the run. For once, my brain isn't going blehblehbleh all the time. Everything quiets down, and the only thing going on is pure flow. It's jus time and the movement and the motion.That's what love
just being a barbarian, running through the woods. — Christopher McDougall

O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy ... In finishing it I found ... such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim. — William James

When I am fully immersed in my work of nourishing humanity, it fills my head with all kinds of feel-good chemicals, such as endorphins, serotonin and dopamine. Problems occur during the brief intervals between the finishing of one work and the beginning of another. During these intervals, my biology starts to get filled with stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin, that worsens my OCD. That is why, I can't sit still even a day after I finish writing a book. Because if I do, my OCD begins to suffocate me inside my head. Hence, as soon as I deliver a work, I have to start working on my next scientific literature. — Abhijit Naskar

I started a novel back in high school. It wasn't very good. It was the opposite of good. The writing itself wasn't too bad, and the characters were interesting. But the story was a mess, and it was full of fantasy cliches. Dwarf with an axe. Barbarian warrior. I don't ever think I'd bother finishing that. It's just not worth my time. — Patrick Rothfuss

Is he well educated?"
"Yes, I think so, as far as he's gone," I answered. "Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all rot about 'finishing' your education. You never do. You learn more important things each day ... — Gene Stratton-Porter

A.Q., Keyes remembered, stood for Asshole Quotient. Skip Wiley had a well-known theory that the quality of life declined in direct proportion to the Asshole Quotient. According to Wiley's reckoning, Miami had 134 total assholes per square mile, giving it the worst A.Q. in North America. In second place was Aspen, Colorado (101), with Malibu Beach, California, finishing third at 97. — Carl Hiaasen

Since the tragedy of Marina's death, her parents have heard from strangers around the globe surprised to find themselves writing to share the impact of "meeting" Marina through her words: Jewish teenagers visiting a series of concentration camps while on "The March of the Living" and finding specific comfort and renewed purpose in her writings; college peers living more mindfully; musicians writing songs inspired by her; older readers making midlife recalibrations and career changes, whether they are returning to school or shifting to a nonprofit or finishing that manuscript; people simply rediscovering a sense of hope. These new life paths all build from Marina's own sense that it's never too late to change, that we must take action, that we are indeed "in this together. — Marina Keegan

If I had to pick one form of acting, it would be live theater. That's where I started; that's where I became a man, I think I'm still finishing up that job. — Nick Offerman

It's not how much you do, it's how often you do it. It simply doesn't matter if you make some monumental effort at any given time. You have it in your to give that extra little bit. You know that you could add that finishing touch. You know you can take that extra step. — Vince Poscente

At least, you two have decent manners," says Effie as we're finishing the main course. "The pair last year ate everything with their hands like a couple of savages. It completely upset my digestion."
... My mother taught Prim and me to eat properly, so yes, I can handle a fork and knife. But I hate Effie Trinket's comment so much I make a point of eating the rest of my meal with my fingers. Then I wipe my hands on the tablecloth. This makes her purse her lips tightly together. — Suzanne Collins

It was 1988, and I was just finishing a D.Phil at Oxford University on the topic of 'Nietzsche and German Idealism.' — Matthew Stewart

A hat is an expression of a woman's soul. It is something that she wears on her head, but it belongs to her heart. It is the keynote of her personality, the finishing touch that makes her look beautiful, smart, and sure of herself. — Lilly Dache

You've sort of made up for it tonight,' said Harry. 'Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcux. Saving my life.'
'That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was,' Ron mumbled.
'Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was,' said Harry. 'I've been trying to tell you that for years.'
Simultaneously they walked forwards and hugged, Harry gripping the still sopping back of Ron's jacket. — J.K. Rowling

I rarely feel that any of my paintings ever make it to a finishing point. There's always something else I want to add to them, like a few more brushstrokes or another color. But there comes a point with every painting when I just have to stop and accept it for what it is. — Colleen Hoover

Probably the only thing that isn't great is the time when I know I'm very close to finishing the actual writing of the story and I'm overcome by this sense of loss. I think it's because I know I won't be "talking" to the main character anymore, it's sort of like what you feel when you know a friend is moving away and you probably won't be seeing her again. — Christopher Paul Curtis

The indolence I love is not that of a lazy fellow who sits with his arms across in total inaction, and thinks no more than he acts, but that of a child which is incessantly in motion doing nothing, and that of a dotard who wanders from his subject. I love to amuse myself with trifles, by beginning a hundred things and never finishing one of them, by going or coming as I take either into my head, by changing my project at every instant, by following a fly through all its windings, in wishing to overturn a rock to see what is under it, by undertaking with ardor the work of ten years, and abandoning it without regret at the end of ten minutes; finally, in musing from morning until night without order or coherence, and in following in everything the caprice of a moment. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You don't realize what a strain it is on the nerves to write or think-of-writing all day long, and to sleep full of nervous dreams, and to wake up not knowing who one is: this all stems from anxiety about finishing the book, about time 'growing short', etc., and the perpetual strain of invention. — Jack Kerouac

I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Last night. I couldn't put that book down. I was awake till four this morning finishing it. I didn't know reading could be like that, I had no idea. — Jill Mansell

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it. — Truman Capote

There are students that are scattered, who need to see something through to the finish, but I would say there are possibly more who do not entertain the leaps of the mind that need to be nurtured, and this desire to finish becomes more about being a good student than about finishing something interesting. Where does work ethic fit in with writing? I think that's pretty complicated from one writer to the next. You need some kind of work ethic, but what does it look like for you? — Aimee Bender

When I started finishing games and coming off the field shaking hands, it was a beautiful thing. I mean, you start seeing that you're an important part of the team. — Dennis Eckersley

Fiction, like sculpture or painting, begins with a rough
sketch. One gets down the characters and their behavior any
way one can, knowing the sentences will have to be revised,knowing the characters' actions may change. It makes no difference
how clumsy the sketch is - sketches are not supposed
to be polished and elegant. All that matters is that, going over
and over the sketch as if one had all eternity for finishing one's
story, one improves now this sentence, now that, noticing
what changes the new sentences urge, and in the process one
gets the characters and their behavior clearer in one's head,
gradually discovering deeper and deeper implications of the
characters' problems and hopes. — John Gardner

After finishing my breakfast, I puttered around for the next hour and tried not to think about Daniel. I glared at the chair in the middle of the back room as if he were still perched in it, shirtless with that shit-eating grin plastered across his goddamned face. Once, I almost sat in the chair - after carefully locking the door, of course, so no one would accidentally wander in and find me with my nose pressed to the leather, trying to see if it still smelled like him. And then came the self-inflicted chiding and browbeating for even thinking about doing something as ridiculous and lame and downright girlie." ~Evelyn — Patricia Leever

I always say one of my favorite things about making movies is finishing on that last day because I get to have my life back and let that go, and hopefully have a real sense of accomplishment at the end of it. — Mark Wahlberg

Shoes are the finishing touch on any outfit and it is important to complete a look with the perfect pair! — Tracy Reese

She brought the box back into the dining room and showed it to Emery. "Which ones go here?"
Amusement touched his eyes - that seemed to be their preferred emotion - and he took the pen and paper from her, finishing the last three symbols himself as he chewed. — Charlie N. Holmberg

As she was finishing her song, the notes dipped down low - they carried a sadness that was more than a sadness at the death of men; rather it was a sadness at the lives of men, and of women. It reminded those who heard the rising, dipping notes, of notes of hopes that had been born, and, yet, died; of promise, and the failure of promise. — Larry McMurtry

It's such a hopeful, almost utopian word, that word "phase." As if any minute, "we" would suffer some sort of Joad overload, come to "our" senses, and for heaven's sake, do something about our godforsaken shoes. But the book phase never ended. The book phase would bloom and grow into a whole series of seasonal affiliations including our communist phase, our beatnik phase, our vegetarian phase, and the three-year period known as Please Don't Talk to Me. Now that we are finishing up the third decade of the book phase, we ask ourselves if we have changed. Sure, we still dress in the bruise palette of gray, black, and blue, and we still haven't gotten around to piercing our ears. But we wear lipstick now, we own high-heeled shoes. Concessions have been made. — Sarah Vowell

I'm always horrified whenever I finish anything. Horrified and desolate. My instinct for perfection should inhibit me from ever finishing anything; it should in fact inhibit me from ever beginning. But I become distracted and do things. My accomplishments are not the product of my applied will but a giving away of my will. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have soul enough to stop things. This book is my cowardice. — Fernando Pessoa

I was never really acting. I was not taking it seriously. Acting was very much a hobby for me. It wasn't really until I was finishing college and doing it sporadically that I began to take it seriously. — Zach Galligan

Quietly Sophronia added, "And the soot on my dress, sir?"
"I didn't see anything." Professor Braithwope smiled down at her, showing a small hint of fang.
Sophronia grinned back. "I'm glad we understand each other, sir."
The vampire looked out into the night. "This is the right finishing school for you, isn't it, whot?"
"Yes sir, I think it might very well be."
"A piece of advice, Miss Temminnick?"
"Sir?"
"It is a great skill to have friends in low places. They, too, have things to teach you."
"Now, sir, I thought you didn't see any soot. — Gail Carriger