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If the book is finishedโpublished and on the shelfโI do not think of revising it. But if I'm not finished psychologically with characters, they will recur, either as themselves or as new, slightly altered manifestations, and their same issues will reappear. It's a matter of the subject and emotional investment and my own obsessive thinking about various issues It's an unconscious process. To say that a single story is not done isn't quite true. A story can be finished and judged successful or not by somebody else, but if the issue is not done for me, I can count on its reappearance.
Antonya NelsonSabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop, because our work is never completely done. With every accomplishment there arises a new responsibility... Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished.
Wayne MullerWhat'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 FaulknerI've just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I'd finished I said to myself, 'Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.' (1911)
Ernest RutherfordBecause answers are inert things that stop inquiry. They make you think you have finished looking. But you are never finished. There are always discoveries that will turn everything you think you know on its head and that will make you ask all over again: Who are we?
Marisa SilverAs 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 McCarthyWe 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 BachI'm so happy that I finished college. Going into this crazy vortex of scrutiny is tough. If I was younger than I was now and I was going to fashion shows, I might have this distorted sense of self. I might rely on those cameras. Because when I was 18, I was half-baked.
Allison WilliamsThis kind of thing always amazed Ginny--people who just walked away from institutions. People who left school when they didn't see the point. Aunt Peg had done that. Ginny knew she never would. That either made her someone who worked hard and finished things, or someone who didn't have the guts to break away from the pack. Maybe both.
Maureen JohnsonIf 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 DidionSay anything you want against The Seventh Seal. My fear of death - this infantile fixation of mine - was, at that moment, overwhelming. I felt myself in contact with death day and night, and my fear was tremendous. When I finished the picture, my fear went away. I have the feeling simply of having painted a canvas in an enormous hurry - with enormous pretension but without any arrogance. I said, 'Here is a painting; take it, please.'
Ingmar BergmanWhen the Second World War finished, I was 23 and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. Seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much.
Christopher LeeI will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is NOT the matter with me. I have not got housemaidโs knee. Why I have not got housemaidโs knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got.
Jerome K. Jerome... unless the actor is able to discourse most eloquently without opening his lips, he lacks the prime essential of a finished artist.
Julia MarloweIf a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it-bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn't belong there.
John SteinbeckThe smartest billionaires I know never finished high school. I got my degree and my doctorate on the street and an advanced degree in jail.
Tommy ChongI just finished touring, and I'm on a detox thing. It's a heavy detox, so nothing in my belly except water, salt, and cayenne pepper.
Eddie VedderSometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished just to stay near it.
Markus ZusakIt'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 guess, a lot of people think is a long time between albums. It was needed for me. I went through a lot to get the album ["Wild Things"] finished. I actually went through a lot to even get the album started.
LadyhawkeThe poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits ever since 1994. You would never learn that from most of the media. Similarly you look at those blacks that have gone on to college or finished college, the incarceration rate is some tiny fraction of what it is among those blacks who have dropped out of high school. So itโs not being black; itโs a way of life. Unfortunately, the way of life is being celebrated not only in rap music, but among the intelligentsia, is a way of life that leads to a lot of very big problems for most people.
Thomas SowellI'm sort of like a T. rex in the world of female actresses. Every time a job is finished, I look at my car and think, 'Could I live in it?
Lena HeadeyIt's frustrating actually, the time involved in getting something released these days. My new CD has actually been finished for a year. It's only now that it's being released
Mick TaylorI 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 MurakamiIf you're in a good profession, it's hard to get bored, because you're never finished - there will always be work you haven't done.
Julia ChildYou can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts.
Richard P. FeynmanIs our day of creative life finished? Does there remain to us only the strange, awful afterwards of the knowledge in dissolution,the African knowledge, but different for us, who are blond and blue-eyed from the north?.... There was another way, the way of freedom. There was the paradisal entry into pure, single beingwhich accepted the obligation of the permanent connection with others, and with the other, submits to the yoke and leash of love, but never forfeits its own proud individual singleness, even while it loves and yields.
D. H. LawrenceWhen Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction - and that was conversation.
John SteinbeckIt is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, worldview and thoughts.
Annie ProulxThere 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.A holiday is when you celebrate something that's all finished up, that happened a long time ago and now there's nothing left to celebrate but the dead.
Abraham PolonskyFor me, once I've worked on something and it's finished, it's like an ex-boyfriend: you don't go back to them.
Michelle RyanI hate the fact you always feel like you have to be going somewhere, like the end destination is to be finished, or to be happy. But the truth is a lot of us are completely lost, and we donโt know, and that is also a state of mind, to not know who you are and where youโre going.
Lykke LiWriting is not like dancing or modeling; it's not something where-if you missed it by age 19-you're finished. It's never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world-at any age. At least try.
Elizabeth GilbertIt's strange, somebody asked for my autograph the other day. Because I finished school and I'm not really doing anything at the moment, I was just kind of aimlessly wandering around London and these two guys who were about 30 came up and asked for my autograph. I was really quite proud at the time, and they wanted to take photos and stuff. And then they were sort of wandering around and I was kind of wandering around and I bumped into them about three times, and every single time their respect for me kept growing and growing and growing.
Robert PattinsonI know one day I'll be irrelevant. No matter how hard you try there is a cultural moment, but eventually that window's gone, your time on Earth is finished, and you might as well leave. I could absolutely die tomorrow - I would not care. I feel like I've lived, I feel like I've had a great life.
Tom FordFor example, the character of Claire in In Dreams wasn't imagined enough by me. Annette Bening is a great actress, and she gave a great performance, but because I hadn't fully written it essentially the character wasn't finished.
Neil JordanWhat we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
Thomas CarlyleThe shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one's soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.
Mark HelprinMy 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 SorelI don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.
Jesse EisenbergWhat's going on?" I sat down on the bed and finished the last of the scone. "Bad things," she said mischievously. "You'll approve.
Richelle MeadThey seemed nearer, not only mentally, but physically when they read ... Their chance was to make everything fine and finished and rich and imaginative; they must bend tiny golden tentacles from his imagination to hers, that would take the place of the great, deep love that was never so near, yet never so much of a dream.
F. Scott Fitzgerald