I’m in a rare position where I don’t have to do job after job. I can take time when my family needs it.

My folks always let me go to the movies every Saturday. We were really motion-picture goers.

When I was in my 40s, Microsoft was my primary activity.

Because my career is so important, I think I make a lot of – I wouldn’t call them sacrifices, but just concessions for my job. I love what I do, and I want to do it for a long time.

On a career level, I always advise people to look ahead and be open to changes in direction. That job that seems so good now can easily turn into a nightmare if you do not see the possible corners it can land you in.

When you’re so busy shooting 12 hours a day, you just eat what someone sticks in front of you.

I am confident that nobody… will accuse me of selfishness if I ask to spend time, while I am still in good health, with my family, my friends and also with myself.

The average family spends 30 hours in front of a television, and they say they don’t have the time to have a balanced, integrated life.

Work is making a living out of being bored.

I first found delight in the Sabbath many years ago when, as a busy surgeon, I knew that the Sabbath became a day for personal healing. By the end of each week, my hands were sore from repeatedly scrubbing them with soap, water, and a bristle brush. I also needed a breather from the burden of a demanding profession.

We use work to numb out. We can’t turn off our machines because we’re afraid we’re going to miss something.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

Mostly, my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn’t. Without my husband’s help and encouragement, I could not have attempted what I have. Ours has been a contented and reasonable partnership, he with his solo jobs and I with mine. But always with work and play together, conducted under a satisfactory system of dual control.

Most employees only want to know how much they get paid and how much time off they get – they probably don’t have the mission in their souls.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.

I read to my kid, but I can’t stand reading.

It’s very important to like the people you work with. Otherwise, your job is going to be quite miserable.

The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, ‚How is the president?‘

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

When I’m in meetings until 5am and then have to get up two hours later for filming, sometimes I ask myself ‚why?‘

If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.

Start a part-time business and make as many mistakes as you possibly can while you still have your daytime job.

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

If you want to occupy the C-suite or the top one-tenth of 1% in any organization, you have to be obsessively devoted to your career at the expense of everything else. And women look at that, and they think, ‚No.‘

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

I get very little sleep when the court is sitting.

I don’t do meetings.

The pay is good and I can walk to work.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

I think a certain amount of stress in life is good. The stress of just working, which takes effort – I think it keeps you going.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

It seems like we wake up and it’s a race until you get to bed. It gets to you after a while and you think, ‚What the hell am I doing?‘

I do think coaches need to get away from the game more, though. It’s good for them.

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.

Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I had jobs that I loved. I worked in city government. I ran a youth organization. I served as an associate dean at a university. And I couldn’t imagine how a baby would fit into all of that.

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.

I always find the time to exercise – kitesurfing, tennis or cycling – and to spend time with my loved ones.

Why should I stop working? If I do, I’ll die and it’ll all be finished.

Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.

I’m a very private person. I don’t go out much. I’m home with kids. I go to work. I don’t really like being the focus of attention, which is why I like being behind the camera more.

People have told me, ‚You shouldn’t bring your daughter onto the podium, ‚cause it’s the workplace,‘ and things like that. But I’m not gonna really listen to that. I’m gonna do what I think is fun for me and my family, and everything’ll be all right.

Moderation is the key so I work certain amount of time and then I take a certain amount of time off.

Every once in a while I get the highly inappropriate proposal which is like, ‚Wow, Really! You don’t even know me and I don’t know you at all, and you want that to happen? Tonight? Ok, I get off work at 7.30.‘

Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

Work ends up dehumanizing people.

Creative people don’t behave very well generally. If you’re looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you’re gonna be depressed real fast. I don’t have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She’s my first priority.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have no time in the day to themselves.

I like to have fun all the time, even if I’m working.

There has to be something in every role that interests you.

I’d like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that’s not just e-mail with a view.

If you spend your life competing with business men, what do you have? A bank account and ulcers!

Have fun in your command. Don’t always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you’ve earned it, spend time with your families.

When I’m writing, I don’t feel neurotic. So it’s better for the family if I’m working.

A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship – and you know what, a father does, too. It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a ‚Mad Men‘ episode.

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.

If you’re working for a good company and you’re happy there, and you’re being compensated accordingly, and your work satisfies you, you should stay there.