A Quote by Ricky Gervais

My dad was a laborer. And he used to get up at 5:30 every morning. He worked for 50 years of his life, in all weathers for, by showbiz standards, petty cash. I remind myself of that when I feel a little bit spoiled or hard done by.
My dad, he worked rebar, an ironworker. Watching my pops get up every single morning, going into work, working hard - I think that really made me want to work that hard, wanted to make me get up early and go for a run or get a lift in or get some extra hitting in and really try to better myself every day.
My dad woke up at 5:30 every morning - every single day - and drove an hour-and-a-half to work. My mom was constantly working odd jobs, whether it was at Sizzler or babysitting. I didn't realize how hard they worked. Most kids rarely do. But they were building something for us.
Dad has worked as a banker at the same firm in Boston, living in the same suburban neighborhood for over 50 years. Later in life, when I got out of graduate school and imagined myself living the life of a writer like Hemingway or Kerouac, his practical self inevitably encouraged me to get a steady a job and raise a family, just like he did.
Every morning I wake up and I tell myself this: It's just one day, one twenty-four-hour period to get yourself through. I don't know when exactly I started giving myself this daily pep talk--or why. It sounds like a twelve-step mantra and I'm not in Anything Anonymous, though to read some of the crap they write about me, you'd think I should be. I have the kind of life a lot of people would probably sell a kidney to just experience a bit of. But still, I find the need to remind myself of the temporariness of a day, to reassure myself that I got through yesterday, I'll get through today.
My dad was just a little trailer trash white dude that worked his tail off, didn't have a dad. He started working at 14, didn't get to play sports. He dedicated his life to his kids to let us live our dreams.
I haven't turned into some rich monster. I've kept my perspective. But I am a bit spoiled. It's hard not to be a little spoiled by having a lot of money.
Every morning I wake up, I can't even wait to go and see what life can I change today. It doesn't have to be a lot of lives, but I can change one life a little bit here, a little bit there, and I hope that everything I create, people know that.
If a farmer and his family can get up at 5:30 every morning to milk cows, surly we can get up at that time to practice basketball.
Home is in my hair, my lips, my arms, my thighs, my feet and my hands. I am my own home. And when I wake up crying in the morning, thinking of how lonely I am, I pinch my skin, tug at my hair, remind myself that I am alive. Remind myself to step outside and greet the morning. Remind myself that it’s all about forward motion. It’s all about change. It’s all about that elusive state. Freedom.
My dad worked all his life, an engineer, 30 years, week in, week out at the same machine. That is mind-boggling to me. I do not know how the hell he did it.
Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It’s ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
My dad was a firefighter for almost 30 years. My mom worked her way up from a secretary to vice president of her own company. They taught me to work hard for everything and take nothing for granted. That's how I play.
The place that I worked I used to joke about it. There was a, every morning at 10:30 I'd come into work and I'd go into this cubicle that had a little upright piano and fake white cork bricks on the wall, and a little slate that came out of the wall that you could actually write on. And a door that locked from the outside. Every day from 10 to 6, we'd go in there and pretend that we were 13 year old girls and write these songs. That was the gig.
It was the summer of 1968 or so, and Dad and my little brother were out camping. While up in the mountains, my brother was bitten by a rattlesnake. As they raced back to the base, my dad sucked out the venom and used his hands as a tourniquet and probably save his life, for it was a serious bite, and he was just a little kid.
My dad worked all day. He would get up at five in the morning and didn't stop working until 10 at night, every day the same.
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