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You can't start a movie by having the attitude that the script is finished, because if you think the script is finished, your movie is finished before the first day of shooting.
Steven SpielbergI know when a story is finished when there is not a single thing more I can think to do to it. And since I know at the start what the last line will be, I know when I've reached that point as logically as I can that it's finished. As for the rewriting-it's not foolproof, of course, but if you're honest about having thought of every possibility and you still come back to what you have, what more can you do?
Amy HempelWhat's wrong with this world is, it's not finished yet. It is not completed to that point where man can put his final signature to the job and say, "It is finished. We made it, and it works.
William FaulknerAs subjects, we all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story. We cannot believe that it is finished, that we are 'finished,' even though we may say so; we expect another chapter, another installment, tomorrow or next week.
Mary McCarthyThere's kind of this unequaled thrill of playing a half-finished song, it's kind of sense of slight embarrassment; like you're blushing. I like doing that. I did that with "Eyeoneye" and it was almost a curse on the song for a while; I debuted it when it was half-finished in a very public way
Andrew BirdWe are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture. We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it to gravel, we can shape it into glory. Examples from every other life are left for us to see, lifeworks finished and unfinished, guiding and warning. Near the end our sculpture is nearly finished, and we can smooth and polish what we started years before. We can make our progress then, but to do it we must see past the appearances of age.
Richard BachLaissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.
Nicolas SarkozyI donโt think there's ever been a point in my career where I've said, 'I've made it.' What does that mean, 'I've made it?' Made it to what? If you say, 'I've made it.' then are you finished? I don't want to be finished. I don't want to quit.
Reba McEntireIt is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated... it is finished when it surrenders.
Ben SteinIf the oarsmen of a fast-moving ship suddenly cease to row, the suspension of the driving force of the oars doesn't prevent the vessel from continuing to move on its course. And with a speech it is much the same. After he has finished reciting the document, the speaker will still be able to maintain the same tone without a break, borrowing its momentum and impulse from the passage he has just read out.
Marcus Tullius CiceroWriting nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing.
Joan DidionThe artist has the power to signoff the work by deconstructing the work itself: I've finished this work now and I'll sign it and relegate the painting to simply something that services my signature. The painting becomes the colorful backdrop of the signature.
Gavin TurkTalkโhalf-talk, phrases that had no need to be finished, abstractions, Chinese bells played on with cotton-tipped sticks, mock orange blossoms painted on porcelain. The muffled, close, half-talk of soft-fleshed women. The men she had embraced, and the women, all washing against the resonance of my memory. Sound within sound, scene within scene, woman within womanโlike acid revealing an invisible script. One woman within another eternally, in a far-reaching procession, shattering my mind into fragments, into quarter tones which no orchestral baton can ever make whole again.
Anais NinI finished the [blog] post reflecting on the fact that, despite all the changes in my life, maybe I wasn't so different after all. If I typed it, maybe I could believe it, too.
Stephanie NielsonThe enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished. Sometimes he even suggests the wish to undertake some excellent work that he foresees we will never accomplish. This is to distract us from the prosecution of some less excellent work that we would have easily completed. He does not care how many plans and beginnings we make, provided nothing is finished.
Saint Francis de SalesI was thinking about time, how on a movie set the shot is maintained in the same time no matter how many takes and hours pass. Reflectors and lights are added, footprints are smoothed away, so that there are no telltale clues as the day wears on. When the shot is finished and the plugs are pulled, time seems to leap forward in a matter of seconds. Perhaps making movies is a step toward being able to move backward and forward and in and out of linear time.
Eleanor CoppolaMannerism always wants to be finished and doesn't enjoy the process. Genuine, truly great talent, however, finds its greatest satisfaction in the production.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheIt's pointless to be critical of your stuff once it's done. I don't spend a lot of time agonising over it. It's of no importance once it's finished.
Paul SimonI was in love with a whirlwind, so when the girl threw me over, I went home and finished my novel.
F. Scott FitzgeraldI think I can recognize when a piece is at a state of completion. I always say to my wife, "Oh yeah, it's roughly finished." I've got it there. And then there's that whole other phase of moving on to properly amp up the sentences and sometimes to move stuff around as well.
Geoff DyerI set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I'm sick or well. There must be 600 finished words โ not almost right words. Before you ask, I'll tell you that yes, I do write 600 at the top of my pad every day, and I keep track of the word count to insure I reach my quota daily โ without fail.
Arthur HaileyI am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don't know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying - please let me live until I am finished.
Haruki MurakamiYou want to be loved because you do not love; but the moment you love, it is finished, you are no longer inquiring whether or not somebody loves you.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiBut we're still rehearsing and planning to make a new album next year. We have some really good new songs that we've already been playing on that last tour that we just finished.
Stephen MalkmusI think, I just always want to leave the door open for, you know, I don't want it to be finished. I've never gotten sick of a song, I've played them over and over and over again, and if I get bored with something, then I'll just change that thing.
Larkin GrimmAs he paid the hansom and followed his wife's long train into the house he took refuge in the comforting platitude that the first six months were always the most difficult in marriage. 'After that I suppose we shall have pretty nearly finished rubbing off each otherโs angles,' he reflected; but the worst of it was that May's pressure was already bearing on the very angles whose sharpness he most wanted to keep
Edith WhartonThere was no let-up. The tempo was always moderate but steady. If a new guy decided to pick up the pace, that's where it stayed, whether he finished with the group or not. You showed off at your peril.
John L. Parker Jr.When the Lord finished the world, he pronounced it good. That is what I said about my first work, too. But Time, I tell you, Time takes the confidence out of these incautious opinions. It is more than likely that He thinks about the world, now, pretty much as I think about the Innocents Abroad. The fact is, there is a trifle too much water in both.
Mark TwainI want you to say dreadfully mad, funny things and make up songs and be--' The Will I fell in love with, she almost said. "And be Will," she finished instead. "Or I shall hit you with my umbrella." *** "You would make a very ugly woman." "I would not. I would be stunning." Tessa laughed. โThere,โ she said. โThere is Will. Isnโt that better? Donโt you think so?โ โI donโt know,โ Will said, eyeing her. โIโm afraid to answer that. Iโve heard that when I speak, it makes American women wish to strike me with umbrellas.
Cassandra ClareShe sat down at the table and spent a good hour talking about her husband. She told Judith how they'd met, how he relentlessly pursued her, and finished by mentioning just a hundred or two of his special qualities. The only thing the man wasn't capable of was walking on waterโฆ yet. Judith made that comment when her friend paused for breath.
Julie Garwood...I got a call from a record company offering me a contract, I did not want to take it because the Lord had pointed me in the direction of spiritual activity...And then it was disclosed to me that I could do both spiritual and musical work. So for five years I executed that contract, and when it was finished, after I made the album Transfiguration, I didn't make another album until twenty-six years later. This new album, Translinear Light, came out of the pleading and constant appealing from my son Ravi Coltrane: 'Ma, please make a CD.' So I eventually agreed.
Alice ColtraneThen the question began to live under my blankets: How did lesbianism begin? What were the symptoms? The public library gave information on the finished lesbian--and that woefully sketchy--but on the growth of a lesbian, there was nothing. I did discover that the difference between hermaphrodites and lesbians was that hermaphrodites were "born that way." It was impossible to determine whether lesbians budded gradually, or burst into being with a suddenness that dismayed them as much as it repelled society.
Maya AngelouWhen asked how she knows when her writing is where she wants it to be: "I know when it's the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it's the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that."
Maya AngelouWhen a documentary filmmaker, working in the style that I do, suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad.
Ken BurnsI heard this album as finished, I heard it in dreams . . . It was like the revelations of John the Baptist or something.
Marilyn MansonHave you taught a Sunday School class and felt when you finished that you had really taught someone some principle of the gospel that had really helped him or given him a brighter look on life? Remember the feeling of peace and joy that followed? Have you ever taught someone the gospel and received that feeling of joy because he had accepted what you had been teaching? The thrill of missionary work!
Eldred G. SmithThere were definitely scenes I struggled with more than others: the car accident and the thunderstorm are two that come to mind. It's difficult to write about a thunderstorm. There are only so many ways to describe it and our vocabulary is so limited. And the car accident scene required a tense, manic quality that had to be conveyed in the language, as well as the character's dialogue and actions. I was editing these scenes long after I thought I was finished with them.
Mary J. MillerDon't say yes until I've finished talking. - Attributed to many Hollywood executives Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.
Kin HubbardEverything for me has happened so quickly. I finished shooting 'The Blind Side' not this past June, but the June before, and all of sudden up to now, it seems like it's gone from zero to 60 for me. I feel so fortunate to be able to say that.
Lily CollinsMy one failing as an artist is that I depend on reference material to perhaps a greater extent than I should. Delacroix said that if you can draw a man falling out of a window and have the drawing finished before he hits the ground then you're a real artist. I wasn't that kind of artist.
Edward Sorel