A Quote by Abraham Lincoln

My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work.
When my father would come home from his work at the Senate and talk about the things he could talk about - because a lot of his work was top secret - he would always tell me these stories and laugh. As deadly serious as his work was, he would laugh at the absurdity of it all.
I feel like in the reading I did when I was growing up, and also in the way that people talk and tell stories here in the South, they use a lot of figurative language. The stories that I heard when I was growing up, and the stories that I read, taught me to use the kind of language that I do. It's hard for me to work against that when I am writing.
As much as I would love to be a person that goes to parties and has a couple of drinks and has a nice time, that doesn't work for me. I'd just rather sit at home and read, or go out to dinner with someone, or talk to someone I love, or talk to somebody that makes me laugh.
As much as I would love to be a person that goes to parties and has a couple of drinks and has a nice time - that doesn't work for me. I do that very unsuccessfully. I'd just rather sit at home and read, or go out to dinner with someone, or talk to someone I love, or talk to somebody that makes me laugh.
For most actors, it's such a struggle to get work. Once they have it, they feel that there's an enormous amount of pressure on them to make it work, and have everyone love them. In my case, it was never like that. It was just about working with the people that I want to work with, and telling the stories that I want to tell, you know?
My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.
I don't want my kids to grow up with no father like I did. I came to the conclusion a while ago that you can work until midnight and not be finished or you can work until 6 or 7 and not be finished. I decided I'd rather work until 6 or 7.
That taught me how to work harder. I learned all about mental toughness on the practice field. If things weren't working out for me in high school, in college, early in my pro career, my solution was always to work harder and internalize. That way, whenever I got an opportunity, I was always prepared. See, there are a lot of guys who are all talk. They say they want to work harder and be the best, but they never pay the price. I love paying the price.
I'm a work horse. I like to work. I always did. I think that there is such a thing as energy, creation overflowing. And I always felt that I have this great energy and it was bound to sort of burst at the seams, so that my work automatically took its place with a mind like mine. I've never had a day when I didn't want to work. I've never had a day like that. And I knew that a day I took away from the work did not make me too happy. I just feel that I'm in tune with the right vibrations in the universe when I'm in the process of working. ... In my studio I'm as happy as a cow in her stall.
The one thing I never did, I was never strict in my techniques. I might have pretended in the past at times that I did work serially, or something like that, but I never did, it was always I let my ear tell me what to do.
I love my lecture tours. I get up onstage. I have my stack of books and a glass of water and a microphone. No podium, no distance between me and the audience, and I just talk to people and get all excited and tell a lot of jokes, and sing some songs, and read from my work and remind people how powerful they are and how beautiful they are.
The stories we can tell are those that happen to us; we meet, work, live, laugh, love, demonstrate, strive in community.
I was only 26 when I started my career. Those days I only wanted to work. When my films did not work, I didn't know what to do. But I never went to anyone for work. Work came in search of me.
It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of your mind and self. They become part of you while changing you. Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
I have often thought that my work with wildlife taught me the meaning of patience, and my work with the big trees taught me the meaning of humility, and my work with the ice has taught me the meaning of mortality.
I've never been able to tell jokes. In the beginning of my career I did impressions and jokes like any other comedian, but I was never very successful because I did it poorly. So I started to talk to the audience and started talking about the atmosphere around me and started to become angry, not in a mean-spirited way, but in a fun way - and my attitude developed from there.
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