When asked, ‚How do you write?‘ I invariably answer, ‚one word at a time.‘

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.

Never confuse motion with action.

If you want to be more productive, then start at the start: get there on time. Whether it is a meeting, a flight, an appointment or a date, it’s important to ensure you are there when you say you will be there. This may feel like an old-fashioned tip to give, but it has served me well for five decades in business.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Your life must be a progression towards ownership – first mentally of your independence, and then physically of your work, owning what you produce.

Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.

I myself would like to become more disciplined within my work.

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

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that’s going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

I keep a hotel room in my town, although I have a large house. And I go there at about 5:30 in the morning, and I start working. And I don’t allow anybody to come in that room. I work on yellow pads and with ballpoint pens. I keep a Bible, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry. I stay there until midday.

One of the things I realized is that if you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don’t prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list, your kids fall lower and lower on your list.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

Better never than late.

I had a period in my life where I decided that I would never be bored again and that, if I had any free time at all, I would make plans, and I would always be doing things. It actually was great for a year or so, but then I lost all of my friends.

Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

I start each book when it’s ready and never before.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

I’m a writer, not a professional runner. It’s fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration.

It’s tough to go to sleep at night, and I wake up after five hours because I feel like I’m wasting time. I just sit up at night and think about what I can do next.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.

Successful people are simply those with successful habits.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

Time is money.

We want to do a lot of stuff; we’re not in great shape. We didn’t get a good night’s sleep. We’re a little depressed. Coffee solves all these problems in one delightful little cup.

Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.

People are so caught in a routine, doing the same things over and over.

For a creative writer possession of the ‚truth‘ is less important than emotional sincerity.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

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

I’m bloody awful at multi-tasking.

I wonder how many decisions we make every day. I believe it’s probably hundreds. We decide whether or not to get out of bed, what we’ll eat, what we’ll do, what we’ll think about, what we’ll say… and on and on.

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

I’m not as goal obsessed as I am process obsessed.

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

One today is worth two tomorrows.

My goals are so high that I don’t have time to relax in any way, shape or form.

I don’t have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.

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

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.

I often work by avoidance.

By the time you get dressed, drive out there, play 18 holes and come home, you’ve blown seven hours. There are better things you can do with your time.

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

I am so busy doing nothing… that the idea of doing anything – which as you know, always leads to something – cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.

When I say that basically writing is a hard hustle, I don’t mean that it is a bad life, if one can get away with it. It’s the miracle of miracles to make a living by the typer.

Time is kind of an amazing thing because you can do so much with it. I think people underestimate time… I don’t want to just sit on my phone for hours.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.