top of page
Exlpore more Work quotes

"A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes."

"The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him--why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same."

"Intellectual 'work' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand, who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him - why, certainly he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair - but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash also."

"Rohan, one of us is an unmarried man with superior mathematical abilities and no prospects for the evening. The other is a confirmed lecher in an amorous mood, with a willing and nubile young wife waiting at home. Who do you think should do the damned account books?" And, with a nonchalant wave, St. Vincent had left the office."

"You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it."

"At my age, I realize that my most precious possession is time, and I've got too much unfinished work to do to spend even a minute talking about myself."

"I am not interested in genres. I am interested in doing the best work I can in whatever medium."
Work,
Explore more quotes by Alice Hoffman

"I feel more influenced in my own work by dreams than I do by other writers' works in a way. Or by popular culture, movies - what else is there to write about than love and loss?"

"I also like the whole idea of fairy tales and folk tales being a woman's domain, considered a lesser domain at the time they were told."

"I really feel like the gift is also the curse. It's always half-and-half. Whatever brings you the most joy will also probably bring you the most pain. Always a price to pay."

"Every problem has a solution, although it may not be the outcome that was originally hoped for or expected."

"She can feel his blood, just beneath his skin; when he breathes, the air fills with smoke. He's like a dragon, ancient and fearless."

"Never to rush something I was creating, but instead let it come into being as if it had a soul of it's own."

"And so many orchards circled the village that on some crisp October afternoons the whole wold smelled like pie."

"He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had to say."

"But now I understood that, although words were God's first creation, silence was closer to His divine spirit, and that prayers given in silence were infinitely greater than the thousands of words men might offer up to heaven."

"The story became a cloud, and the cloud a sheet of rain, and rain fell throughout the empire."
bottom of page