A Quote by Agnes de Mille

The choreographic process is exhausting. It happens on one's feet after hours of work, and the energy required is roughly the equivalent of writing a novel and winning a tennis match simultaneously.

Agnes de Mille

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After After Hours Energy Equivalent Exhausting Feet Happens Hours Match Novel Process Required Roughly Simultaneously Tennis Winning Work Writing

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Agnes de Mille
American - Dancer
September 18, 1905 - October 7, 1993

The irony of multitasking is that it's exhausting: when you're doing two or three things simultaneously, you use more energy than the sum of energy required to do each task independently. You're also cheating yourself because your're not doing anything excellently. You're compromising your virtuosity. In the words of T. S. Elliot, you're 'distracted from distractions by distractions'.

Twyla Tharp

The hardest thing for a film actor, especially if you are in a lot of the film, is sustaining energy for the entire length of a production. It's quite tough. With acting, it's not the same as directing. Directors work the exact same hours; directing is incredibly exhausting. The only difference is that directors aren't required to have bursts of energy and focus. They're probably focused the entire day. Actors have this thing of "stop/start." That can be quite draining, actually.

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Novel writing is far and away the most exhausting work I know.

C. S. Forester

Each weekend I play at least one and maybe two sets of tennis a day. My doubles team was in the finals recently at my tennis club in Palm Beach and lost a tiebreaker after a three-hour match. I must confess, by the end of the three hours, I was relieved it was over.

Wilbur Ross

For me, the process of writing a novel happens mostly in your head before you actually start writing.

Dan Chaon

Certain people want to binge-watch stuff, and they want 10 solid hours of whatever, not realizing that writing 10 hours of quality television is a exhausting experience. Writing an hour and a half is a warm hug compared to writing 10 hours of television.

Justin Theroux

Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years... No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

Daniel Levitin

It's too much pressure. You have to think match by match and moment by moment or it drives you to distraction. I'm tired of all the talk about it. Everyone is obsessed with it...If I was the type of person who had tennis, tennis, tennis all the time and I went to bed and ended up dreaming about tennis, I would go nuts.

Marat Safin

Greatest thing in life: Winning a tennis match. Second greatest thing in life: Losing a tennis match

Jimmy Connors

In '94, I started writing a novel about an enormous terrorist act that destroyed the United States. The novel takes place twenty years after this destruction, with all the stuff that we're dealing with now - a dirty war, the disappeared, the concept of terrorism. Anyway, 9/11 happened some years into the process, and I was like, OK, I don't have a novel.

Junot Diaz

The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel.

Jane Smiley

I'm a massive tennis fan! I love it to bits. I wish I could play, but I am worried that the muscles required for tennis are sort of in direct opposition to those required for mandolin playing.

Chris Thile

You don't simply tell someone to get out there and win the tennis match. You say 'move your feet' or 'watch the fuzz on the ball' to really get into the Zen of it. You pull all that together, and then you just might hold up the Wimbledon Plate... It's not about winning first place but bringing every element of effort to whatever you do.

Diana Nyad

When I'm writing, which is 8-9 months out of the year, I'm in a concerted writing pace, where I work 5 days a week for at least a few hours a day, maybe a little bit more. But I won't work for more than 2 hours at a time. I'll work for a couple hours and take a break.

Amy Ray

When I'm writing a novel or doing other serious writing work, I do it on a schedule that dictates writing either 2,000 words a day or writing until noon. After I hit whichever mark comes first, then I can give my attention to everything else I have to do.

John Scalzi

Docs are more exhausting because of the physical labor that's required. Feature filmmaking is more exhausting because of politics and the bullshit. You get to the point of rolling film and until you lock picture it's one political game after another. They're both struggles for survival. They are two different worlds.

George Hickenlooper

A Quote by Agnes de Mille

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