Sick But Working Quotes & Sayings

Flu is easily transmitted, so if you are working with sick people - who are most at risk for getting seriously ill - you ought to be vaccinated. I am not really equipped to say whether it should be the law or not. — Michael Specter

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all. — Mario Savio

The health benefits of paid sick days policies are obvious. They prevent the spread of disease. But the impact is wider. If a working mom or dad loses a job because of sickness, the family may slip into poverty. — Madeleine M. Kunin

Stand-up comedy - I love this job, and I gotta tell you, folks - knock wood - it's been working. 'Cause I was one of those kind of people, even when I had a regular job, I couldn't even call in sick right. You know, I was like, 'Hello? Yeah, I can't come in today. I have scurvy. — Carol Leifer

You've heard of people calling in sick. You may have called in sick a few times yourself. But have you ever thought about calling in well?
It'd go like this: You'd get the boss on the line and say, "Listen, I've been sick ever since I started working here, but today I'm well and I won't be in anymore." Call in well. — Tom Robbins

The Working Song
by Breton Braley

Oh, we're sick to death of the style of song
That's only a sort of a simpering song,
A kissy song and a sissy song
Or a weepy, creepy, whimpering song.
So give us a lift of a lusty song,
A boisterous, bubbling, boiling song,
Or a smashing song and a dashing song,
Oh, give us the tang of a toiling song,
The chanty loud of the working crowd,
The thunderous thrall of a toiling song!

Ay, sing us a joyous daring song,
Not a moaning, groaning, fretting song,
But a ringing song, and a swinging song,
A rigorous, vigorous, sweating song.
We have had enough of the gypsy song,
Which is only a lazy, shirking song,
So toughen your throat to a rougher note
And give us the tune of a working song,
A tune of strife and the joy of life,
The beat and throb of a working song! — Berton Braley

Providing working Minnesotans with at least seven days of paid sick leave every year is the right thing to do to. It benefits our families and helps our businesses become more worker friendly and family friendly. — Mark Dayton

We need leadership in this country, which will improve the lives of working families, the children, the elderly, the sick and the poor. We need leadership which brings our people together and makes us stronger. — Bernie Sanders

I get on a real serious health kick when I'm on the road, because as a singer, you can't really get sick. If you get sick, your whole instrument stops working. I've done all these different vitamin drinks. I drink coconut water, and I run. I eat food. I juice. — Matisyahu

By contrast, a schoolteacher in North Carolina recounted the story of a sick black woman preparing for death. She gave the teacher her will, plans for a funeral and a grave, and insurance policies, requesting that she look after them. When the teacher asked her if she wanted to see her husband, who had deserted her, she replied, "No, and if you ever hear from him, tell him I don't leave him even a good wish." She then displayed an envelope, containing what she called her most prized possession, and handed it to the teacher for safekeeping. "When I am gone, no one will care about this envelope. Will you promise to keep it, so I will know I am not all gone so soon?" The envelope contained college credits she had accumulated after attending night school while working all day. 2 — Leon F. Litwack

Still, he could feel a fine cord stretched between them, a thin luminous fiber that ran from his chest all the way across the continent and forked into theirs. Never before had he lived through a fever without his mother; when he'd been sick in Debrecen she'd taken the train to be with him. Never had he finished a year at school without knowing that soon he'd be home with his father, working beside him in the lumberyard and walking through the fields with him in the evening. Now there was another filament, one that linked him to Klara. And Paris was her home, this place thousands of kilometers from his own. He felt the stirring of a new ache, something like homesickness but located deeper in his mind; it was an ache for the tie when his heart had been a simple and satisfied thing, small as the green apples that grew in his father's orchard. — Julie Orringer

Seasons of life can make a big difference. Sometimes people are great believers while in college, but when they're young parents with their second baby and they're working sixty or eighty hours a week and their wife's sick all the time and the boss is on their back-they simply don't have time to reflect. And I don't think faith can develop without some contemplative time. If they don't make room for that, their faith is not going to grow and doubts will creep in. — Lynn Anderson

In our society competitive capitalism has put family life and working life on a collision course.In Canada statistics show that over 70 percent of the burden of caring for children, the aged, the disabled and the sick falls on women most of whom receive no pay for these very essential tasks.Normally speaking, it may be said that the forces of capitalism, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer and thus increase the gap between them. — Jawaharlal Nehru

One important thing was not to forget what he hoped to achieve in life. Another important thing was not to confuse a romantic picture of himself - as a doctor in Africa, for example - with a real possibility. And he tried not to lose sight of the fact that he was an adult in an adult world, with responsibilities. This was not easy: he would find himself sitting in the sun cutting out paper stars for a Christmas tree at the very moment other men were working to support large families or representing their countries in foreign places. When in moments of difficult truth-seeking he saw this incongruity, he felt sick that he should be saddled with himself, as though he were his own unwanted guest. — Lydia Davis

Finally, although they didn't want to, Hazel and Jones were chosen to call on Doc. They found him working over a tide chart while he ate a chicken stew of which the principal ingredient was not chicken but sea cucumber. They thought he looked at them a little coldly. "It's Darling," they said. "She's sick. — John Steinbeck

If you have a chance of working for a healthy company or a sick one, choose the sick one. The sickest ones need the best doctors and it's a lot easier to stand out in a company that needs help. — Greg Brenneman

I just take every day is a miracle and I'm really glad that I'm still working and that people are not sick of me, even though even I'm sick of me a little bit. — Meryl Streep

My grandma was really sick when I was working on 'Sin Nombre' and eventually died that summer when we were finishing the film. But I was able to bring an unfinished version of the film for her to watch. — Cary Fukunaga

I'm so sick of hearing that U.K. hip hop doesn't get credit and success when I'm working to get it - for me and for others, too. — Estelle

Love was actions more than words. And not just easy actions like hugs and kisses. It was hard ones, like sticking by someone in bad times, not just in good. It was working for them, even when you were tired. It was putting their needs first, even before your own. It was taking care of them when they were sick. It was forgiving them when they disappointed you. It was protecting them and teaching them. — Gayle Rosengren

When a doctor arrives to attend some patient of the working class, he ought not to feel his pulse the moment he enters, as is nearly always done without regard to the circumstances of the man who lies sick; he should not remain standing while he considers what he ought to do, as though the fate of a human being were a mere trifle; rather let him condescend to sit down for awhile. — Bernardino Ramazzini

The nation is sick; trouble is in the land, confusion all around ... But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century. Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee, the cry is always the same: 'We want to be free.' — Martin Luther King Jr.

Working on the summit of Mauna Kea was comparable to working on the hospital pulmonary ward with sick people sucking on oxygen cylinders. — Steven Magee

Therefore, to you, and to the fifty governors, I have a request. Please, do not send me politicians. We do not have the time to do the things that must be done through that process. I need people who do real things in the real world. I need people who do not want to live in Washington. I need people who will not try to work the system. I need people who will come here at great personal sacrifice to do an important job, and then return home to their normal lives. I want engineers who know how things are built. I want physicians who know how to make sick people well. I want cops who know what it means when your civil rights are violated by a criminal. I want farmers who grow real food on real farms. I want people who know what it's like to have dirty hands, and pay a mortgage bill, and raise kids, and worry about the future. I want people who know they're working for you and not themselves. That's what I want. That's what I need. I think that's what a lot of you want, too. — Tom Clancy

I just didn't feel very good. One day I woke up and I was like: "All right. I'm going to start eating right. I'm going to start working out." I figured it might help me feel a little bit better - even if I was still sick, it might help me move forward with my struggles. I just kind of turned a corner. — Chris Pronger

I know this is going to sound crazy, but I really love working out. I know that sounds sick to some people, but I didn't love it at first. It's become a healthy addiction for me. And like, now, if I'm watching TV on the couch I'm like, "Ugh, I could be on a cardio machine watching the same thing." That's just now how my mind thinks. — Khloe Kardashian

I turned fifty and decided to take a break. After twenty-five years of working, it seemed like a good idea. Honestly, I was feeling depleted. I still cared about my career and realized, amid a worsening economic climate, that I was lucky to have one. But that appreciation felt more lodged in my head than my heart. One day, United Airlines sent me a card, along with some new luggage tags, offering congratulations on having flown 2 million miles. Quick arithmetic translated all those zeroes into the equivalent of flying from one side of the country to the other every single day - Sundays, holidays, birthdays, sick or well - for more than two years. Maybe the card from United should have offered condolences. It all added up to an abiding fatigue. And a question: Did I want to fly 2 million more miles over the next twenty-five years of my life? Was I having a low-grade midlife crisis? I had no red sports car, reckless affair, — Marc Freedman

No I did not call in sick to work today
No I'm not out hanging with my friends
There's no more wasting time
On what I think I'm supposed to do
My clock is standing still so
I can have my dream life life
With the ones I love
Playing all day long
Laying back by the water side
With nowhere to go
And the music on
I'm working hard for my dream life
To be my real life
And that can't be wrong
All I have is this life
So I'm making it what I want — Colbie Caillat

There are those who work so they can stop.
Stopping is the why of work.
There are those who stop so they can work.
Working is the why of work. — Nick Cave

I never planned to be a model at all. I moved to Paris to study art, and I was there working as an artist, taking classes, and I had a little sick dog that I was using up all of my money to try and heal. It was right at that point that this photographer, Errol Sawyer, saw me at the phoning office and convinced me to let him take my photo. — Christie Brinkley

There's a problem when we're creating a job you can't do if you have kids," Dennis Van Roekel, former president of the National Education Association, told me. "There are a lot of us who spend too much time working. But ultimately, you need time for family, time for community, time for church." According to a union executive who has negotiated charter school contracts across the country, at many schools teachers are expected to eat lunch with their students, and have no prep period to plan lessons. At others, when a teacher calls in sick, the school will not hire a substitute, but will instead require other teachers to fill in during their prep periods. At one Chicago charter school, teachers complained that they had so little free time during the day that they could not visit the bathroom. — Dana Goldstein

At times, working in big cities far from nature, I have been sick with nesomania, and I think the reason is this: On the islands one has both the time and the inclination to communicate with the stars and the trees and the waves drifting ashore, one lives more intensely. — James A. Michener

For many people, a western lifestyle equates to living in a toxic home, working a toxic job, eating toxic food, being sick from your thirties onward and eventually dying from preventable disease. — Steven Magee

In the very early stages of working in sports, I was sick of being referred to as "the Barbie doll" because I had long, blond, fake hair. So I went and bought a boxed hair color, dyed my hair black, and put on glasses. And I looked ridiculous. I looked like a completely different person. I was trying to get away from the stereotype but what I realized in doing that is that what I say and how I conduct myself in what I do will speak for itself, and I don't need to apologize for being a woman in that space. — Charissa Thompson

If you were in a drug store," said Stahr "-having a prescription filled-"
"You mean a chemist?" Boxley asked.
"If you were in a chemist's," conceded Stahr, "and you were getting a prescription for some member of your family who was very sick-"
"-Very ill?" queried Boxley.
"Very ill. Then whatever caught your attention through the window, whatever distracted you and held you would probably be material for pictures."
"A murder outside the window, you mean."
"There you go," said Stahr smiling. "It might be a spider working on the pane."
"Of course-I see."
"I'm afraid you don't, Mr. Boxley. You see it for your medium but not for ours. You keep the spiders for yourself and you try to pin the murders on us. — F Scott Fitzgerald

'Party Down' is the most fun I've ever had working in my life. We shoot 10-episode seasons and we shoot it in 10 weeks, so it's very brief: 4-day episode shoots. You never get sick of anybody, and it never feels like a drag. It's way, way, way too short. — Lizzy Caplan

I'm really looking forward to being clean again. It's this weird thing with smack. First off it makes you feel so good. But after a bit, after your body gets used to it, it stops working like that. You start needing it just to stay normal... Then you get sick of it and give it up for a few days. And that's the really nasty thing because then, when you're clean, that's when it works so well. — Melvin Burgess

I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don't like it. Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit you are sick is really to admit to political or social or romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of social weapon. — Sherwood Smith

Critics do not have the satisfaction of working on things that actually exist, like sick dogs or dental cavities. So they are tempted to pluck a virtue out of necessity and claim that they toil in an altogether superior realm, that of the imagination. This implies, rather oddly, that things which do not exist are inevitably more precious than those that do, which is a fairly devastating comment on the latter. What kind of a world is it in which possibility is unquestionably preferable to actuality? — Terry Eagleton

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 was working at a restaurant in L.A. when a producer came in. He said I should audition for this movie 'Cellular.' I did, and I got the part. It actually makes me sick to tell that story because it's obnoxious. — Mircea Monroe

Yes. What is it, guilt, revenge, love, what?"
I swallowed. "I live alone."
"And your point is?"
"You have the Pack. You're surrounded by people who would fall over themselves for the pleasure of your company. I have no one. My parents are dead, my entire family is gone. I have no friends. Except Jim, and that's more of a working relationship than anything else. I have no lover. I can't even have a pet, because I'm not at the house often enough to keep it from starving. When I come crawling home, bleeding and filthy and exhausted, the house is dark and empty. Nobody keeps the porch light on for me. Nobody hugs me and says, 'Hey, I'm glad you made it. I'm glad you're okay. I was worried.' Nobody cares if I live or die. Nobody makes me coffee, nobody holds me before I go to bed, nobody fixes my medicine when I'm sick. I'm by myself. — Ilona Andrews

I have had demanding jobs since I was 18 years old. I have had two sick days in all my working life. — Mariella Frostrup

I watched 60 Minutes ... and they showed this woman, she's in every kind of..thing like that. 'This woman', they say, 'she lost her first four children
died from malnutrition
and, now, she's afraid that her new six-month-old newborn twins will suffer the same fate' ... Who's going to step in and say ... 'kick her in the cunt 'til it doesn't work', 'that woman is a sociopath! that is a sick human being!' ... How much of a sociopath do you need to be? That is the slow ritual torture-murder of children, one after another! At what point does cause-and-effect not kick in? How many bulb-headed skeletons have to go stiff in your arms?! ... 'what? this one's not working ... oh, well let's try again', one after another. At what point do you not go 'I think this is bad'? ... How many kids are you going to fuckin' kill, lady? ... If you impregnate someone under those conditions, they should abort the parents! that's sick! — Doug Stanhope

Working in the hospital teaches you that there are only two kinds of people in the world: the sick and the not sick. If you are not sick, shut up and help. — Hope Jahren

There was a woman on the radio the other day who had wrote a book about how difficult it was in meetings once you're a working mother. She was like 'Oh, You have baby sick on your business suit'. Most people don't have a bloody business suit!!! — Alice Nutter

Listen, I've been sick ever since I started working here, but today I'm well and I won't be in anymore. — Tom Robbins

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

If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace, with a military band playing softly, and a Cinematograph working brightly; then I'd go out in the back streets and main streets and bring them in, all the sick, the halt, and the maimed; I would lead them gently, and they would smile me a weary thanks; and the band would softly bubble out the 'Hallelujah Chorus'. — D.H. Lawrence

Originally I was supposed to do Grand Prix, but I was under contract to 20th Century Fox at that time and Alex North was supposed to do Sand Pebbles, but he got sick, so Fox preempted me out of Grand Prix, and to my good fortune, I got to do Sand Pebbles. It was my first time working with Robert Wise and it was a great experience. — Jerry Goldsmith

The wish to disappear sends many travelers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is perfect: let other people wait for a change. Travel is a sort of revenge for having been put on hold, or having to leave messages on answering machines, not knowing your party's extension, being kept waiting all your working life - the homebound writer's irritants. But also being kept waiting is the human conditon. — Paul Theroux

Most likely because the majority of the receptionists have gone home, to a sick partner according to statistics, in the country with the shortest working hours in the world, the biggest health budget and the highest proportion of sick leave. — Jo Nesbo

A few years ago, when I was writing songs for my first album, I was staying with Michael Feinstein as I often did. I was working on a pilot. My grandma was very sick at the time. She died of complications from alcoholism. She always used to say [in his grandma's voice], "Red wine is good for my heart. That's what my doctor said." And we'd say, "Yeah, but not for breakfast." Unfortunately, it was the thing that killed her. I felt inspired to write a song about her and what that meant for her life and for all of us. I was writing it in Michael's house. — Cheyenne Jackson

I get very tense working, so I often have to get up and wander around the house. It is very bad on my stomach. I have to be mad to be working well anyway, and then I am mad about the way things are going on the page in addition. My ulcer flourishes and I have to chew lots of pills. When my work is going well, I am usually sort of sick. — William H Gass

...they marveled at the animal's elusiveness, loyalty, and affection, its willingness to defend its territory; its stamina and ability to travel long distances and resist hunger for many days; its acute use of odor, sight, and sound in locating prey and avoiding danger; its patience, following a sick or wounded prey for great distances; and its contentment to be away from its home for long periods of time. Working cooperatively with fellow pack mates, the wolf demonstrated time and again it power over prey by encircling it, ambushing it, or running it to exhaustion --the same methods that Native Americans themselves used. In all these manifestations, they found the wolf supremely worthy of emulation. — Bruce Hampton

As soon as you hear a fighter say, "I'm working smarter, not harder," you always want to bet against that guy. That mentality does not work. You have to work hard. And sometimes that means you are going to work too hard. You are going to decline. You are going to tear down your body and your muscle fibers. You are going to get sick. — Chael Sonnen

In my senior year of high school, I was working at a dealership washing cars. For some reason, I asked them to give me a shot as a salesman for a shift. What happened was I sold two cars in one day and they offered me the position. After a while I decided I didn't want the job and so I told the manager I'd contracted HIV from having unprotected sex. It was only half true but I'd been feeling sick and somehow convinced myself I was really dying. I remember I sat in my boss' office, the both of us crying. Later than night he calls my dad and says 'I'm sorry your son has HIV.' It was terrible. — Nick Thune

Their Christian walk was such that it convinced even their most bitter foes of the sincerity and wholeheartedness of their faith and practice. The foes saw faith working powerfully through love, demonstrated in their straightforward business dealings, charitable deeds to the poor, visiting and comforting the sick and oppressed educating the ignorant, convincing the erring, punishing the wicked, reproving the idle, and encouraging the devout. And all this was done with diligence and sensitivity, as well as joy, peace, and happiness, such that it was obvious that the Lord was truly with them. — Willem Teellinck