Professional Obsession Quotes

I am very selfish when it comes to work, and I only care about work.

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

People think librarians are unromantic, unimaginative. This is not true. We are people whose dreams run in particular ways. Ask a mountain climber what he feels when he sees a mountain; a lion tamer what goes through his mind when he meets a new lion; a doctor confronted with a beautiful malfunctioning body. The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder.

When you are a player, sometimes, you forget you are a person, you are a father, you are a husband.

To me, my business is my life.

Once I'm committed to a role, I will go very deep into it, even when I'm not at work. I'll keep on studying the script, maybe 40 or 50 times. I might call a scriptwriter at three in the morning to say I've thought of something new.

I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day to day affairs that they had no time for friend making.

My job is — I make socks. That’s all I do. I don’t necessarily care about the show. I would rather film this — me doing what I do — than being around my family.

My father was a film-maker. He always said he wanted to go like Humphrey Jennings, the legendary director who stepped backwards over a cliff while framing a better shot.

If you've ever been around a group of actors, you've noticed, no doubt, that they can talk of nothing else under the sun but acting. It's exactly the same way with baseball players. Your heart must be in your work.

My wife and I are involved in writing/publishing/promotion twenty-four/seven. It isn't a day job; it's life.

Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference.

If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their sense. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. Humanity goes. Money making becomes so important that they must work by night as well as by day. Health goes. And so competitive do they become that they will not share their work with others though they have more themselves. What then remains of a human being who has lost sight, sound, and sense of proportion? Only a cripple in a cave.

I guess when you go to business school you never turn business off.

I literally think that if you're in this business, it has to be the only thing you can and want to do, because it's so hard. You have to be fully committed - and partially insane - to wake up every morning and be like, 'I'm an actor.'