The wildest hope of a healthy person is to get back to his first Christmas party and be shy enough to be happy.
Evelyn Waugh: 'Yes, I was determined to have a happy Christmas'
'Did you?'
'I think so. I don't remember it much, and that's always a good sign, isn't it?'
At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth.
Read more‘He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.’
Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.
Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.
A loser doesn't know what he'll do if he loses, but talks about what he'll do if he wins, and a winner doesn't talk about what he'll do if he wins but knows what he'll do if he loses.
Brilliant men are often strikingly ineffectual; they fail to realize that the brilliant insight is not by itself achievement. They never have learned that insights become effectiveness only through hard systematic work.
Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.
There is no such thing as talent.There is pressure.
Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.
Idleness is only a coarse name for my infinite capacity for living in the present.
It's only work if somebody makes you do it.
Work is much more fun than fun.
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet.
People used to laugh at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, they're not laughing now.
I've heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance.
“I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, they aren’t laughing now.
Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement.
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
Read moreMy friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Procrastination is the fear of success. Because success is heavy, it carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the "someday I'll" philosophy.
After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
Things can be done. The people in life who get them done are the ones who know that, and the ones who don't are the rest.
Read moreTwenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
I don't like work — no man does — but I like what is in work — the chance to find yourself.
It's never too late to be what you might have been.
Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
I would rather die of passion than of boredom.
In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
Many people are so busy working that they forget to live.
Unimportant work expands to fill the time in which frightening things should be done.
Life isn't coursework, baby. It's one damn essay crisis after another.
Read moreBe polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody in the room.
A man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance. So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know—is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.
Read moreIf you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.