Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale’s department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.
We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better than the many.
Since the well-known victory over the hare by the tortoise, the descendants of the tortoise think themselves miracles of speed.
My journey has been a very slow build-up. Each year has been a step upward. I've never actually gone backward.
Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.
Alekhine developed as a player much more slowly than most. In his twenties, he was an atrocious chessplayer, and didn't mature until he was well into his thirties.
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
I will never, most likely, be good at the piano, but thanks to it, I will never forget the humbling, infuriating, necessary slowness of progress in any artistic endeavor.
I'm not expecting a big sell-off but I do think that if we don't have a move toward economic growth and policies that will promote economic growth and get us out of this 2 percent world - we really need to see 4 percent, 5 percent - to see jobs created, and if we don't see that longer-term, yeah the market will sell-off...[but] I do think things are getting better. It's just been very slow.
The artists realise it will take time. It is an upliftment process.
Gradually the healing took place, seeming as it always does that it wasn't taking place.
After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little.
Everybody is improving but I am improving slowly, which seemingly widens our distance.
