Started To Work Quotes & Sayings

I started to work up in my old bedroom, playing, writing songs, and it somehow came to me that I could introduce soul music. Nobody seemed to be doing that. — Graham Parker

You're not safe to go back there," he said.
"I'm going," I returned.
"We'll see."
Jeez, there was just no shaking this guy.
"You do know that there's this little thing called the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote?" I asked.
"I heard of that," he said and there was a smile in his voice.
"And there's this whole movement called fem ... in ... is ... im." I said it slowly, like he was a dim child. "Where women started working, demanding equal pay for equal work, raising their voices on issues of the day, taking back the night, stuff like that."
He rolled into me, which made me roll onto my back.
"Sounds familiar."
"Do you have an encyclopedia? Maybe we can look it up. If the words are too big for you to read, I'l read it out loud and explain as I go along."
He got up on his elbow. "Only if you do it naked." I slapped his shoulder. — Kristen Ashley

Remember my experiments with the RTG and having a hot bath? Same principle, but I came up with an improvement: submerge the RTG. No heat will be wasted that way. I started with a large rigid sample container (or "plastic box" to people who don't work at NASA). I ran a tube through the open top and down the inside wall. Then I coiled it in the bottom to make a spiral. I glued it in place like that and sealed the end. Using my smallest drill bit, I put dozens of little holes in the coil. The idea is for the freezing return air from the regulator to pass through the water as a bunch of little bubbles. The increased surface area will get the heat into the air better. Then I got a medium flexible sample container ("Ziploc bag") and tried to seal the RTG in it. But the RTG has an irregular shape, and I couldn't get all the air out of the bag. I can't allow any air in there. — Andy Weir

I started out from a pretty modest background, so I always had a pretty good sense of money. I always had to work for my money, save my own money, I always bought my own stuff with my money ... trying not to waste money unnecessarily. — Marco Arment

In those days [batch processing] programmers never even documented their programs, because it was assumed that nobody else would ever use them. Now, however, time-sharing had made exchanging software trivial: you just stored one copy in the public repository and therby effectively gave it to the world. Immediately people began to document their programs and to think of them as being usable by others. They started to build on each other's work. — Robert Fano

Love
for us
is no paradise of arbors
to us
love tells us, humming,
that the stalled motor
of the heart
has started to work
again. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

In my first publication I might have claimed that I had come to the conclusion, as a result of serious study of the literature and deep thought, that valuable antibacterial substances were made by moulds and that I set out to investigate the problem. That would have been untrue and I preferred to tell the truth that penicillin started as a chance observation. My only merit is that I did not neglect the observation and that I pursued the subject as a bacteriologist. My publication in 1929 was the starting-point of the work of others who developed penicillin especially in the chemical field. — Alexander Fleming

We never work on only one project because we never know if we will get permission for a project. So, for 'Over the River,' we started in 1992. I was just finishing 'The Umbrellas' in Japan and California, and I was also working on getting permission to wrap the Reichstag. — Christo

When he was level with his partner he brought his other arm around his back, immediately going for that gorgeous ass. He gave it a good, hard squeezed before running his thumb down the crease. Green moaned inside their kiss, pushing his ass back into his hand. "Horny fucker," Ruxs hissed back. "You started it." Green moaned, worming his hand between them to cup Ruxs' swelling dick. "Ahhh, fuck. We gotta stop. Work. Need to go to work," Ruxs said breathlessly. He felt like a king. Green was looking at him like he could throw him on the cold floor right now and spread his legs wide for him, all he had to do was say to. Ruxs slapped his ass hard and Green moaned like the hot slut he was. — A.E. Via

I never knew how small L.A. was until I started to work here. — Rita Ora

When I was young, I wanted to be a writer or painter. I was always writing stories, and I excelled at drawing. My teachers encouraged my art work. When I was 9 or 10, I began learning piano and started writing music. — Bat For Lashes

We started an organization that's the only sub-organization of the MacArthur Foundation and we are called the Macarturos.Usually when I win something, I'm the only one of my ethnicity to get it, but this time I met all these Latinos, and I was so excited. I'd meet someone and I'd go, "Can you come to San Antonio?" And they'd go, "Oh yeah." And suddenly I had twelve people that said they would come. And I didn't know how it was going to be. And that's how the Macarturos became a reality, where these very generous geniuses come to San Antonio and work together. — Sandra Cisneros

I wasn't really that good at being a musician. And then I tried being a standup. I was an actor. I was a photographer. I tried everything. Nothing was particularly working for me, but then, as a musician, I wrote jokes for comics. And they started to buy my jokes, and that's where I thought maybe that might work — Garry Marshall

Usually they looked past me hopefully and some even went and peered into the car to see if the man they really wanted was hiding in there. And it was uphill work examining an animal when its owner was chafing in the background, wishing with all his heart that I was somebody else. But I had to admit they were fair. I got no effusive welcomes and when I started to tell them what I thought about the case they listened with open scepticism, but I found that if I got my jacket off and really worked at the job they began to thaw a little. — James Herriot

Doris Day started performing at a young age, had a tough road to success, and once she achieved it delivered the goods 100 percent and brilliantly, always making difficult work look as easy as breathing. — Robert Osborne

So between critiques, the camera flew around on its arm like some sort of drunk helicopter, getting reaction shots from each contestant, and then from the judges. They asked us to hold our reactions as best we could until they got to us. Ever smile for a photograph for someone who doesn't know how to work their camera? Twenty times longer than that. My mouth started to tremble from trying to hold a smile. During one of these awkward frozen moments, one of the contestants grinned at me and mouthed the words "I love you," and I tried as best I could to communicate my thanks while also maintaining my frozen face. — Lauren Graham

I was going through a break up. I was depressed ... I really did need to do something. Recording an album was a great escape. I don't know what would have happened if I wouldn't have started to work. — Damon Albarn

Once I moved to Chicago and started trying to get acting jobs, I just tended to book more things that were comedically based than anything else. I never had the preconceived notion, 'I will be a comedic actor.' I just thought, 'I'll go into acting and see what kind of work I can get.' — Steve Carell

Yes, I'm blonde. When I started as an actor, because of the accent and my body and my personality, it was not what the stereotype of the Latina woman in Hollywood is, so they didn't know where to put me. The blond hair wasn't matching. The moment I put my hair dark, it was better for my work. — Sofia Vergara

I started to work with cotton fabrics. I used cotton because it's easy to work with, to wash, to take care of, to wear if it's warm or cold. It's great. That was the start. — Issey Miyake

David Ayer was put on my map, at that point, and I always kept note and clocked his career. When he started directing, I saw Harsh Times, I saw Street Kings and I saw End of Watch. I gave my agents a list of directors that I wanted to work with, and at the top of that list was David. I wanted to have that experience. — Joe Manganiello

Aw, honey - you sound real ready for it. You always get like this? All on edge like this, just about a second away from coming, before we've even started?"

How did he know? She didn't even know and she was the one about to do it.

"You know, most women can't come easy, this way. But it's good to know you can, 'cause baby I'm gonna work you so good on my cock, I swear to God. — Charlotte Stein

Nature as a means of reproduction is important for these intellectual workers because the specialisation and one-sidedness of their work generates psychological instability and requires periods of complete relaxation without jarring sensorial stimuli (noise, media, social contacts). Nature is the most efficient compensation for intellectual stress since it represents the unity of body and mind against the capitalist division of labour. Extensive consumption of nature has traditionally been an element of the re-production of intellectual workers. (It started with Rousseau, then came the Romantics, Thoreau, the early tourists, Tolstoi, artists' colonies in the Alps, etc). The ecological movement responds directly to the class interests of the intellectual sector of the proletariat and the struggle against nuclear power plants is a mere extension of this struggle. — Anonymous

In reading, one should notice and fondle details. There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunny trifles of the book have been lovingly collected. If one begins with a readymade generalization, one begins at the wrong end and travels away from the book before one has started to understand it. Nothing is more boring or more unfair to the author than starting to read, say, Madame Bovary, with the preconceived notion that it is a denunciation of the bourgeoisie. We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge. — Vladimir Nabokov

The reason I started writing movies was because I kept getting parts that I just kind of stepped into. I didn't have to do a lot of work and I ended up getting sort of bored. — Scott Caan

The Doctor was strapped to a wide table of some kind, and Turlough immediately started on the straps that held him.
"We must stop meeting like this."
"Very amusing," the Doctor replied with an irritated look. Sharma made quicker work of them with his issue knife.
"You're forgetting your manners." Turlough remembered their predicament.
"Thank me later," he suggested, and turned to leave. — David A. McIntee

I started running around my 30th birthday. I wanted to lose weight; I didn't anticipate the serenity. Being in motion, suddenly my body was busy and so my head could work out some issues I had swept under a carpet of wine and cheese. Good therapy, that's a good run. — Michael Weatherly

After I left college, I went to work at the Royal Opera House in London, which became a real catalyst for me because it made me realize that I was interested in cinema and in the way life is thrust at you. So I started making films. — Sam Taylor-Wood

As we returned to Argentina, I started seriously to work towards a doctoral degree under the direction of Professor Stoppani, the Professor of Biochemistry at the Medical School. — Cesar Milstein

What the hell are you proud of? Proud to live in the country with the most intrusive, obnoxious, abusive tax collectors in the world? Proud to live in a country that has a higher percentage of people in prison than any other country in the world? Proud to be ruled by a government that has started and perpetuated more military conflicts in more areas of the world than any other in history? Proud to live in a country where the politicians and bankers have seen to it that you, your children, and your children's children will forever be their indentured servants, to be forever herded and fleeced like sheep? Proud to live in a country where the biggest slimeballs on the planet tell you what you can eat, what you can drink, what you can drive, what you can build, where you can work, what you can produce, and what you can think? — Larken Rose

I tried to copy some of his mannerisms at first but it didn't work. And then I just let the spirit of the character grow in me and it just took its rightful place. I started to speak the lines and it felt right. — Derek Luke

Usually, I have a lot of acquaintance with the story before I start writing it. When I didn't have regular time to give to writing, stories would just be working in my head for so long that when I started to write I was deep into them. Now, I do that work by filling notebooks. — Alice Munro

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest. — George Lucas

I was doing stand up comedy when I was 11, that's how I got started; not because I wanted to do comedy, but because we were broke, living in Echo Park in Downtown Los Angeles, from 1986, I saw the Rodney King riots; my parents didn't really work. But I wanted a new backpack, that's how I got into this business - I wanted a new backpack. — Shia Labeouf

Now a cholera epidemic was sweeping through Southeast Asia and south Asia in the early 1970s, so I started medical school and I joined a laboratory to work on this. — Peter Agre

Any good biography has to got to lead you to the work. Many biographers have started out in love with their subjects and ended up hating them. — D.T. Max

25 years ago, when I started in New York, I had the pleasure to cook for Andy Warhol. At the time, I could have traded art for food - I should have done so, because I could get his work for nothing! — Daniel Boulud

I always had to rely on humor and sarcasm. And when I started having kids, that doesn't work with kids. Kids don't understand sarcasm, and they certainly don't understand my humor. — Kurt Fuller

Writing, for me, is a little like wood carving. You find the lump of tree (the big central theme that gets you started), and you start cutting the shape that you think you want it to be. But you find, if you do it right, that the wood has a grain of its own (characters develop and present new insights, concentrated thinking about the story opens new avenues). If you're sensible, you work with the grain and, if you come across a knot hole, you incorporate that into the design. This is not the same as 'making it up as you go along'; it's a very careful process of control. — Terry Pratchett

One day, when I came home from work, I accidentally put my car key in the door of my apartment building. I turned it, and the whole building started up. So I drove it around. A policeman stopped me for going too fast. He said, "Where do you live?" I said, "Right here!" Then I drove my building onto the middle of a highway, and I ran outside, and told all of the cars to get the hell out of my driveway. — Steven Wright

The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues. — Terry Pratchett

When I first started acting, somebody once said to me that anything that is a problem that prevents you from getting a job will eventually be a strength. It works both ways. The odder you are, the harder it is to get work, but once you sort of establish it, you have no competition. — Tom Noonan

It was in that room too that I learned not to think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day. That way my subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything, I hoped; learning, I hoped; and I would read so that I would not think about my work and make myself impotent to do it. Going down the stairs when you had worked well, and that needed luck as well as discipline, was a wonderful feeling and I was free then to walk anywhere in Paris. — Ernest Hemingway,

There are a lot of movies I'd like to throw away. That's not to say that I went in with that attitude. Any film I ever started, I went in with all the hope and best intentions in the world, but some films just don't work. — Kiefer Sutherland

Australians and New Zealanders don't talk about Gallipoli in terms of invasion. I started talking about it and using that word and at first there were a few people who were getting upset in the same way that in any country, if you work for a newspaper you know exactly the dude you can go and talk to get a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to something to do with the military. — Russell Crowe

You have to be a cop-out or a wash-out or a dropout to come to our college. You have to work with your hands. You have to have a dignity of labor. You have to show that you have a skill that you can offer to the community and provide a service to the community. So we started the Barefoot College, and we redefined professionalism. — Bunker Roy

This primary question of life organization is immensely important. If making money is the main goal, a person can often forget what his or her true interests are or how he or she wants to deserve recognition from others. It is much more difficult to add on other values to a life that started out with just making money in mind than it is to make some personally interesting endeavor financially possible or even profitable. — Pekka Himanen

I hadn't ever felt any particular calling to be a novelist, and I clearly remember telling a friend of mine about six months before I started work on 'Elsewhere' that I would never write a novel. — Gabrielle Zevin

While I was there, Voyager flew by Saturn. I got involved with a person who was a member of the imaging team and started working on data from Saturn, ... With all that data coming in, the imaging team didn't have enough hands or scientists to work on all of it. — Carolyn Porco

Well, hell," muttered Drake. "Do you do that to all the human women?"
"No. Usually they've already started taking off their clothes by now. She's beginning to hurt my feelings."
"We need to get you a paper bag or a giant scar or something."
"Yeah," said the man, his tone dry. "I'll get right to work on that — Shannon K. Butcher

Acting has been my passion from the minute I started. I was pretty young when I wanted to be a doctor, but when I started doing theater work as a freshman in high school, the first time I hit the stage I was like, If I can do this every day, life won't get any better! — Sophia Bush

Once I really started to understand Frank Stella's work and follow it, there's a certain type of invention and playfulness and extreme rigor with which he kept going forward. — Frank Stella

When I first started writing, I did mostly short fiction, and I'd work on a short story and get near to being done and have no idea what I'd work on next, and then I'd panic. — Ann Leckie

N terms of the logistics of that from a title perspective, we have not talked about that nor do we typically care very much. We're not large on bureaucracy. My brothers and I said to each other when we started in this business that as a collective we can do far more than any one of us can do individually. And that's really what guides our relationship - this sense of camaraderie. And it is a family business, and we work together collaboratively as a family. — Ivanka Trump

Every day I get to 'Think' and work on everything from digitizing electric grids so they can accommodate renewable energy and enable mass adoption of electric cars, helping major cities reduce congestion and pollution, to developing new micro-finance programs that help tiny businesses get started in markets such as Brazil, India, Africa. — Ginni Rometty

I started doing yoga in my 20s. I did teacher training, that was what I was going to do if acting didn't work out. I started teaching other actors right at the beginning of the yoga craze - people still thought it was a little weird, but a lot of actors I knew were getting into it and didn't want to look foolish in class. So I started teaching them! — Kristin Davis

So after some instruction, Joseph put on the apron and started carefully polishing the clean dishes even though it made no sense to him.
Over the course of the day, he learned how to wash the floors and clean the windows and empty out the iron stove. Soon the kitchen smelled of lemons and spices, fresh bread and soap.
There was a short break for lunch before resuming work. The light shifted during the afternoon and cascaded through the clean windows, burnishing the room with gold.
Joseph was so focused on the work, on the patters of the silverware and the curve of the handles on the ancient pitchers and measuring cups, that he forgot for a little while about his parents, and St. Anthony's, and the fire, and losing Blink. He felt a kind of pride in being allowed to touch all the delicate glassware, plates, and bowls, and he hadn't broken a single thing. — Brian Selznick

The person who understands Dharma will have the opposite reaction to a "hard" job. That person will be eager to get started, no matter what kind of work is in front of her, because she understands that she's doing God's work. And when you're working for God, nothing is too hard. — Russell Simmons

It's funny - when I first started as an actor, obviously there were long periods of being idle and all you want to do is work. So if I ever get the compulsion to feel like I should complain or feel like I want to take a break, I just remember how I was before and be very grateful for it. — Neil Jackson

I was teaching live drawing in a community college and students started zoning in on the face and spending a couple of hours on that and then putting the rest of the body on the face only in the last hour. It didn't work to just tell them, 'Well, you're really not thinking of the body as a totality.' So in desperation I would put a drape over the model's head so they couldn't see it. They had to draw the body and then at the end of the session for an hour I would take the drape off just to try to reverse their procedure. — John Baldessari

I used to help my grandfather on the farm, driving tractors, raising crops and animals. I used to feed some of the baby cows and pigs, and I had to be no older than 7 or 8. Then at about 9 or 10 I started driving tractors. It showed me at an early age what hard work was all about and how dedicated you have to be, no matter what you do. — Tyson Chandler

I'm really going off of watching John Waters speak one time and I remember he just kind of talked and it was totally interesting. I wanted to hear about his life and how he got started and when did he think he made it, stupid stuff like that. And what his relationship with the mainstream is because he's so far out there, but then he became part of the mainstream in this weird way. He was really funny, though. Yeah, I have to work on my jokes. — Kathleen Hanna

I never knew where I was going to end up when I started film. I didn't start film to be famous. Of course, it's a public medium, and of course we chose a public medium because we like people to pay attention to the work that we're doing. But I didn't know what I was going to end up. — Amy Seimetz

platform. Outside an old man in overalls was working his way along the wagons, undoing padlocks, throwing bolts, hauling the massive panel doors back along their tracks. Apart from him, no one. Could it be this simple? He didn't pause to ask himself the question a second time. Just sprang down from the opening onto the concrete siding and began walking, head lowered and limping at first, until the oxygen started flowing through his bloodstream and the muscles of his legs began to work then, as they did, quickening his pace and striding faster, lifting his head to the seamless pale blue dawn sky and tasting the breath of freedom. He found a covered overpass that seemed to connect the freight platforms with the main terminal. Took the stairs two at a time and started across the bridge towards the massive building at the other side. The station hall was a curiously romantic — Greg Wilson

I wanted to get my recording and become a musician again, work; with other people, do that kind of thing because I kind of got away from that for a while once we started happening, you know, selling records, sold out concerts. — Bootsy Collins

It wasn't until I was 26 or 25 when I started sending work out to magazines. — Anthony Doerr

Everybody starts with creating or acquiring certain property in order to create the material to work with. When we started our business, we thought first of all about development, how to grow, and we managed to do this, even with all the difficulties and all the difficult rules that were implemented in Russia at that time. — Vladimir Potanin

So when it was my turn to start developing projects, I knew the writers I wanted to work with, and I had met every head of studio, every executive and a lot of producers. I started finding things, little crumbs off other people's tables that I would make my own. — Rupert Sanders

When I started to work in Paris in fine dining, the passion really kicked in, and I knew that I would not, for the rest of my life, do anything else. — Eric Ripert

It's interesting because the way J.J. cuts - we're very close with our editors as well, so it's kind of the first cut and then he went back and started tightening things up, etc, then loosing things when it was too tight. Then you start watching it and you start figuring out performance - not performance, character-wise I should say, who you're really able to follow, whose journey is harder to follow, and you make all that work. — Bryan Burk

I was 160lbs when I started and I went up to 195lbs. There were no steroids. But it was hard work, dedication, hitting the gym. You kind of see it. — Marlon Wayans

Once I started working, it became better and better. I really felt that I was back into the work. I was glad I was alive. Just being able to draw and paint - even if I can't walk - is worth living for. — John Newman

Around 11 P.M., unable to concentrate on his work or even watch the news, he had started to wonder if this was how it started with stalkers. And then he started to think maybe he'd do his next article as an investigation of stalkers. But then he wondered ... if you do a ride-along with a stalker, are you stalking the stalker?
It all got very weird. — Richard Castle

Then he said, "That's a long way from stage designing, isn't it." She nodded. "Quite a long way." She started to ask him if he intended to do any work pertaining to the atom bomb, but she didn't, because what would it matter if he did or didn't? — Patricia Highsmith

I grew up in a business-inspired environment, and over the years have started and run several businesses and philanthropic organizations. Understanding how large corporations work, by having hands-on and board experience, I apply that knowledge to the benefit of all that I do. — Shari Arison

Thank heavens when the first single Bye Bye came off this album work started to pick up, then I'm Alright has taken us across the world. Radio has been very good, it has chosen to be kind to us. — Jo Dee Messina

I tried to do it all myself: be mommy and camp counselor and art teacher and prereading specialist (and somehow, in my off-hours, to do my own work). I tried my absolute best. And like so many of the moms around me, I started to go a little crazy. — Judith Warner

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

I used to go around looking as frumpy as possible because it was inconceivable you could be attractive as well as be smart. It wasn't until I started being myself, the way I like to turn out to meet people that I started to get any work. — Catherine Zeta-Jones

I had been here five years already, training very hard, learning about the systems, the shuttle, the station systems. But, everything really became real when I started to work with them. — Philippe Perrin

started feeling real sorry for everybody, even though they were screaming and acting silly. I thought about how much work it was to have fun, and how brave we all were for going to the trouble, since the easiest thing would be to just moan and cry and bite the walls, because we're all going to die anyway, sooner or later. Isn't that sad? I saw how every human life is a story, and the story always ends badly. — David Sedaris

Salman Khan is the best co-star that I could have ever started off with. He's very supportive, very chilled out and very nice to work with, so working with him was a great start to my career. — Sonakshi Sinha

When I first started [taking acting classes] I sort of stuck my toes in but I was so nervous I didn't know if I could go all the way. I was so scared about it for some reason. The more confident I got with it, the more I just fell in love with it. I love going to work every day and trying to make the most of the stuff I've been given. — Josh Duhamel

I started to work at the Colony in March 1958. I remember my first day because the telephone started to ring, and it was Sinatra, three for lunch, his usual table; Onassis, two for lunch, usual table; the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Leland Hayward, Truman Capote, all wanting their usual tables. — Sirio Maccioni

I'm a piece of work, man. I will do what I want, at all times, always. Nobody's going to persuade me one way or another. I can't be persuaded. I take criticism, I listen, I analyze, but at the end of the day, I make the decisions. Because that's the way I started, and that's the way I'm going to finish. — Action Bronson

Pro bono has been abused as a cover and I detest those who do that because pro bono is such a noble thing to do. I have done a lot of pro bono work from the time I started my practice, never boasted about it, never got much publicity out of it. But every time when I see some people being interviewed regarding their pro bono work, I laugh because even the Government is coming into the picture. They had considered forcing all lawyers to do pro bono work. Pro bono is something that comes from your heart. You should have the desire to help. It should not be forced upon you. The authorities don't realise this. The moment you force pro bono on lawyers, you take away the meaning of pro bono. Those who are genuinely concerned and do pro bono also will be classified as people who have to do it because they have been told to do so. — Subhas Anandan

The Saint Bernards work best in teams of at least three dogs. They are sent out on patrols following storms, and they wander the paths looking for stranded travelers. If they come upon a victim, two dogs lie down beside the person to keep him warm; one of the two licks his face to stimulate him back to consciousness. Meanwhile, another dog will have already started back to the hospice to sound the alarm. — Stanley Coren

I spent months fighting the fact that she had a personality disorder, but everything changed when I started asking myself how I had to adapt to work with a boss like her. — John Izzo

I am not really sure that Diana Vreeland did Yves Saint Laurent a favor, as opposed to the world, by putting that exhibition at the Met in 1983. Because I'm sure that Saint Laurent started looking back at his own work. You see that with artists, don't you? Once they get their first retrospective, it's really hard for them to push ahead. — Suzy Menkes

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

I honestly never wanted to direct. It was only when I started to work on 'Alexander the Great' that I realized I had to direct. I saw something so specifically in my mind, I could not leave it to someone else. — Christopher McQuarrie

I started walking rather than driving to get my coffee. I liked it so much, I do it for 45 minutes every day ... You know those annoying people who are like, 'If I don't work out I feel ... ugh'? I might be becoming one of those people. — Ross Mathews

It's the opening line of a football game returned for a touchdown. Or fumbled.

It's what orange juice is to breakfast, the first minutes of a blind date, a salesman's opening remarks.

It sets the tone, lights the stage, greases the skids for everything to follow.

It's the most important part of everything you'll ever write because if it doesn't work, whatever follows won't matter. It won't get read.

It's your opening paragraph. And enough can't be said about its importance.

Seduction. That's basically what leads are all about--enticing the reader across the threshold of your book, novel or article--because nothing happens until you get 'em inside.

And you literally have only seconds to do it because surveys show that eight out of ten people quit reading whatever it is they've started after the first fifty words. — Lionel Fisher

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

The first year I started in San Francisco, there was an American work on every program and there's been a lot of music by living composers and gradually that was part of the process of getting the audience really to trust me. — Michael Tilson Thomas

Zack stepped toward Mollie, and without asking permission, tugged her into his arms. "Let's dance," he said impulsively. Her eyes widened in alarm. "Don't be ridiculous." Mollie was not the sort to be drawn out of her comfort zone without a little prodding. She tried to skitter out of his arms, but he hauled her back. "Let me do all the work, Mollie. I know what I'm doing." Like any good Pole in Chicago, Zack had been dancing since childhood and confidently led Mollie in a rousing jig. She was clumsy at first, but all she had to do was follow his lead. The tension in her back relaxed, and she learned the steps. Her smile started out hesitant, then bloomed wider. With her face illuminated by firelight and laughter, she was perfect in his arms. — Elizabeth Camden

I come from an alcoholic Irish background - I know where I was going! But I met my wife and started to practise Buddhism, which is a levelling experience for me, and there hasn't been a day I've missed in 40 years. I apply it to everything - to my work and relationships. I try to be a compassionate person. — Patrick Duffy

'Middle class' used to be synonymous with secure, with steady, with boring, because middle-class people were people who were pretty much safe from the time they first started work on through retirement and until their deaths. No longer. — Elizabeth Warren

It's very difficult to find the time or the money for people to organize rehearsals for some movies. It staggers me how little preparation often goes into these scenes which are difficult and complicated. You think, "God, it's crazy. I've never met this person before and here I am having to work at how to do a whole performance on the set." It was great to have a few days of just talking to Michael [Caine]and Daniel [Barber] and thinking about the characters and the relationship between them before we started shooting. — Emily Mortimer

My great inspiration has always been Studs Terkel, who is a wonderful American oral historian. He was a radio DJ at first, interviewed a lot of jazz musicians, and at some point started to interview Americans about work. — Hans Ulrich Obrist