I don’t do meetings.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

When things haven’t gone well for you, call in a secretary or a staff man and chew him out. You will sleep better and they will appreciate the attention.

I’m never any good in the morning. It is only after four in the afternoon that I get going.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

I have so many designs and video ideas and lyrics in my head, so I always try to be productive.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

You know, if you are kind of rich, the best thing is that you don’t have to think about money. The best thing you can buy with money is freedom, time. I don’t know how much I earn a year. I have no idea. I don’t know how much I pay in taxes.

I believe you never get tired by doing work. You get tired when you don’t work. When you clean your house, you don’t get tired; it gives you satisfaction.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.

Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.

The kids are a big part of my schedule.

My biographers… would like to have my time at the court almost complete before they finish the book. We decided… to flip the order.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

I really think that there was a great advantage in many ways to being a woman. I think we are a lot better at personal relationships, and then have the capability obviously of telling it like it is when it’s necessary.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

Time is money.

When you have two busy kids running around the house, returning e-mails is a task, let alone surfing the web.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

I have to admit, I sometimes wonder how much more successful I would have been as a coach had it not been for my spending summers on the golf course. I could have watched more film, that’s for sure. One advantage Joe Paterno had over me was that he didn’t play golf.

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

I want the concentration and the romance, and the worlds all glued together, fused, glowing: have no time to waste any more on prose.

Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.

When I finish something, I want it out that day. Pop music is like the daily paper. Its got to be there then, not six months later.

No, there is literally nothing on the business side that I wouldn’t sacrifice in a heartbeat to have an extra couple of hours‘ writing. Nothing.

There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

Work ends up dehumanizing people.

If I was to go to sleep before midnight, I would feel weird about myself, like I wasted a day. My most productive hours are between midnight and five.

Lost time is never found again.

We record when I have a hole in the schedule. Sometimes night, sometimes afternoon, sometimes morning – we fit it in when we can. I prep for episodes all the time.

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.

I just don’t believe in the basic concept that someone should make their whole career in public service.

When it comes to knowing what to say, to charm, I always had it.

I’m one of the slowest drivers on the road. I mosey along. If you’re doing anything too fast, including living life too fast, that creates sudden death. If I have to be somewhere on time, I make sure I leave early enough.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

I like the cold weather. It means you get work done.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.

I’m so wrapped up in my work that it’s often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, my relationship with Holly has suffered by this.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.

I notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don’t have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

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.

Tell me I have to be somewhere, and I’ll be there 20 minutes early and stay there longer than anybody else. You hold up a lot of people if you’re not on time.

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword – two jackets, one that’s driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

I don’t know what’s better gettin‘ laid or gettin‘ paid.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

Labor gives birth to ideas.