A Quote by James Salter

I wasted time writing films. I don't look back on those years as lost, but it wasn't what I should have been doing. — © James Salter
I wasted time writing films. I don't look back on those years as lost, but it wasn't what I should have been doing.
When I look back I can think that of course I've been lazy and haven't practiced as much as I could have and have wasted time. Still though, I look back on my life and I think that really, I am very happy that I lived my life the way I have and I would never ever have wished it any other way - especially, the six years with my lama and then the 18 in Lahul.
I look back on the time I've wasted, and I'm just glad I wasted it while I still had the chance.
I have been into bodies and fitness, so I am very critical about how a body should look in terms of flaunting it. I would never fall down and roll and do a cleavage shot - I have seen those in Bollywood films, and those are things I cannot tolerate. I wouldn't do that. That's not me - I'd rather look sharp and sexy and stylish just doing a walk.
Secretary [Hillary] Clinton and others, politicians, should have been doing this for years, not right now, because of the fact that we've created a movement. They should have been doing this for years. What's happened to our jobs and our country and our economy generally is - look, we owe $20 trillion. We cannot do it any longer.
I don't think one should ever come to my stage of life and have to look back and say, Gosh. I wish I hadn't spent all those years doing that job I was never really interested in.
Two years work wasted, I have been breeding those flies for all that time and I've got nothing out of it.
Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back upon the time which we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering. Time lost is time not filled, time left empty.
I'm eternally grateful for the fact that I'm doing what I like best. I thank my stars for it. I wonder why I wasted all that time being fat. I should have lost weight and started acting earlier. But as they say, things happen when they are meant to.
The aster has not wasted spring and summer because it has not blossomed. It has been all the time preparing for what is to follow, and in autumn it is the glory of the field, and only the frost lays it low. So there are many people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the crude sap of their natural dispositions changed and sweetened before the blossoming time can come; but their lives have not been wasted.
I've always been interested in people that you wouldn't see otherwise. If you look back at my books, photographs, and films-and since I'm doing this retrospective I've been forced to look back-the work is always about a small group of people who are somewhat isolated, and who you would never see if I didn't film or photograph them.
When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul-then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness.
I think the trick is, how do you spend time doing it but make it look like you haven't spent time doing it? Over the years you look at women like Lauren Hutton and everyone says: 'She just pulled her hair back and ran out of the door.' I've been in fittings with Lauren and she definitely thinks about it. She just knows how to make it look easy.
Maybe I've lost a little, but I think everyone does over time. People have been writing that I'm getting old every year, and eventually they're going to be right. There's nobody in this game that's doing the same things they once did in the peak years of their career.
Tell the truth. All the time. About everything. What's the alternative to radical honesty? Waste. Wasted time, wasted money, wasted possibilities-a wasted life.
So far, yes, I have been doing only commercial films because those are the kind of films that came my way. Those are the kind of films that I liked, but definitely I'm open to doing other kinds of cinema as well, and if something comes along - if I like a character - then I would definitely do something off-beat or edgy.
I've been a comedian for a long time so writing and performing is a big part of what I do. If anybody's doing comedy they should also work on writing.
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