Finishing It Quotes

• Much of the stress that people feel doesn't come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they've started.

  David Allen

  Life, Motivational, Happiness

  39 Copy quote

• Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

  Truman Capote

  Children, Book, Writing

  10 Copy quote

• When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.

  Marc Chagall

  Art, Flower, Men

  48 Copy quote

• When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it

  Marc Chagall

  Art, Finishing Up, Made

  7 Copy quote

• The merit in action lies in finishing it to the end.

  Genghis Khan

  Success, Lying, Merit

  157 Copy quote

• Usually I'm able to prepare a message about two to three weeks in advance.I know some preachers don't like that. They want to be finishing it on Friday before they preach it on Sunday, but our worship team really likes me to get it done way in advance.

  Max Lucado

  Friday, Team, Sunday

  Source: www.sermoncentral.com

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• I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing; it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  "The Book of Disquiet".

  47 Copy quote

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• The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Inspiring, Writing, Novel

  13 Copy quote

• When I visit schools and talk to students about writing, I give them one word of advice and I give it to them quickly and loudly-FINISH! Starting something is easier than finishing it. You must have discipline to go from a few sentences, to a few paragraphs, to a piece of writing that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Finishing something bridges the difference between someone who has talent and one who does not. My best advice? Apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair-and finish. FINISH!

  E. L. Konigsburg

  Writing, School, Bridges

  4 Copy quote

• The best part of all, the absolutely most delicious part, is finishing it and then doing it over I rewrite a lot, over and over again, so that it looks like I never did.

  Toni Morrison

  Finishing, Looks, Delicious

  Toni Morrison, Carolyn C. Denard (2008). “What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction”, p.79, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• For me,the greater part of writing is daydreaming, dreaming the dream of my story until it hatches out-the writing down of it I always find hard.But I love finishing it,then holding the book in my hand and sharing my dream with my readers.

  Michael Morpurgo

  Dream, Book, Writing

  Michael Morpurgo (2014). “Private Peaceful”, p.128, Scholastic Inc.

  4 Copy quote

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• Sometimes you need to live with a painting for a while. Starting a painting can be easy, but finishing it... that's the skill of the painter, how you finally know when it's done.

  Elizabeth Neel

  Skills, Needs, Done

  Interview with Michel Auder, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 22, 2009.

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• Oh, and one more thing: If I try something that I've never done before, something that's particularly difficult for me, and it doesn't work out, that doesn't make it a failure. The fact that I actually succeeded in finishing it makes it a huge success. Think of all the people who never even try.

  SebastiAn

  Thinking, People, Work Out

  6 Copy quote

• It's easy to get published once you have written a really good book and the hard part, 99 percent of what you need to worry about, is really finishing it.

  Laini Taylor

  Book, Worry, Needs

  "Free-writing, travels led Laini Taylor to `Daughter of Smoke and Bone'". Interview with Maya Lubarsky, articles.sun-sentinel.com. November 21, 2012.

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• Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.

  Will Rogers

  Military, War, Fall

  Paula Love, Will Rogers (1972). “The Will Rogers book”, Texian Pr

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• I don't usually give out advice or recipes, but you must let the person looking at the photograph go some of the way to finishing it. You should offer them a seed that will grow and open up their minds.

  Robert Doisneau

  Giving, Advice, Mind

  23 Copy quote

• O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.

  William James

  Philosophy, Real, Book

  William James (1961). “Selected Letters”

  5 Copy quote

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• [M]y first published book had just appeared in stores. The last year of my life-the year of finishing it, editing it, and seeing it through its various page-proof passes-ranks among the most unnerving of my young life. It has not felt good, or freeing. It has felt nerve-shreddingly disquieting. Publication simply allows one that much more to worry about. This cannot be said to aspiring writers often or sternly enough. Whatever they carry within themselves they believe publication cures will not, I can all but guarantee, be cured. You just wind up with new diseases.

  Tom Bissell

  Believe, Book, Editing

  4 Copy quote