Minimal Resources Quotes

Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.

Greatness really consists in doing some great deed with little means.

When I started off, I was working in a shed behind my house. All I had was a drill, an electric drill. That was the only machine I had.

In the information age, the barriers [to entry into programming] just aren't there. The barriers are self imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don't need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.

Life is what the least of us make the most of us feel the least of us make the most of.

The good thing about being a writer is that you don't need anything except for a laptop. You can really do your own work and if you're not manically compelled to write all the time before you do it professionally, it's probably not a business for you anyway.

Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe – the only lady private detective in Botswana – brewed redbush tea. And three mugs – one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course.

There were no toys or games when I was younger, just a football.

The writer doesn't need economic freedom. All he needs is a pencil and some paper.

I have my own definition of minimalism, which is that which is created with a minimum of means.

Jesus of Nazareth was the most famous human being who ever lived on this planet, and he had no infrastructure, and it's never been done. He had no government, no PR guy, no money, no structure. He had nothing, yet he became the most famous human being ever.

I mean if we even had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.

I look for a sense of reality with everything I did. I didn't work in a studio, I didn't light anything. I found a way of working which pleased me because I didn't have to frighten people with heavy equipment. It was that little black box and me and £5 worth of film in my pocket or maybe it was only £2 in those days.

On the tech side, little start-ups can do something magnificent. They don't need too much in terms of plants and infrastructure.

Take the roof off the building where they are meeting, and limit them to bread and water.

When I did that '3 Days of Normal' one, we had no budget, and we were all staying in a house in New Hampshire. There's no trailers, and it's just a family environment. There's not much of a crew; you just do what you need to do.

Working on 'Honeymoon,' an independent movie, was almost like working on TV with the space, and everything was stripped down - costume and hair and makeup. There was very little to hide behind, and you absolutely had to create the character from within.

I made it about a three-day weekend so people wouldn't have to change their clothes a lot. We didn't have an art department; we didn't have a make-up department.

I don't think people understand when you say you are making a micro-budget film that you are getting paid no money.

The good thing about being a writer is that you don't need anything except for a laptop. You can really do your own work, and if you're not manically compelled to write all the time before you do it professionally, it's probably not a business for you, anyway.

The only thing you need to set up a business school is a warm body and a piece of chalk.

I wanted to be a film student again, as a man in my 60s. To go someplace alone and see what you can cook up, with non-existent budgets. I didn't want to be surrounded by comforts and colleagues, which you have when when you're a big time director. I wanted to write personal works.