Job Quotes

The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Over the past decades, students who have blindly followed their passion, without rational analysis of whether their choice of career truly was wise, have been more unhappy with their job choices than those who coupled passion with rationality. ~ Barbara Oakley

Deceiving people was natural ... It had been my job for so long that lying to protect myself, or those I loved, was as easy as breathing. I'd promise Rachel that there would be no more lies, forgiving or not. When it came to her, there hadn't been, and there wouldn't be when she came back. But all bets were off until I found her. I would deceive anyone, lie about everything, and do anything to get her back. ~ Molly McAdams

Keep your head down, fella. Do your job. Sell the product, write the contracts, negotiate the loans, attend the closings, bank your share and fatten the Keogh accordingly. ~ John D. MacDonald

Big companies are often in the process of laying off workers. Small startup companies are the ones that are hiring. The statistics prove that's where job growth is going to occur. ~ Jerry Moran

Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. ~ Ed Asner

There was a telemarketing job one summer in high school that I was rejected for. I still walk by the building that I actually had the interview in. It's still in New York, and I always think about that job and why I didn't get it. ~ Noah Baumbach

When unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are always present, "Good job!" isn't necessary; when they're absent, "Good job!" won't help. ~ Alfie Kohn

Big money, big Liberal Party politics and big media are trying to get rid of us, of course, by letting Packer take over Fairfax - a media-only company. But we're hanging in there and doing the best job we can for our readers while we can. ~ Margo Kingston

If you have a profession that depends on what you look like, you can't blame somebody for caring about that. It's part of their job. So it's vanity but it's also not in a lot of cases. It's being professional. ~ James Franco

It's very hard to step into a job when people are just dismissing you as a pretty face, and saying you got your job only because your surname is McMahon. ~ Julian McMahon

You can't compare any job or any friendship or anything to another. I think if you do, it's kind of a recipe for disaster. ~ Vincent Kartheiser

I think Republicans need to do a better job of reaching out to everyone in the United States. Politics is always about getting the support of the majority of our people. ~ Marco Rubio

If you're waiting for the job, you're dead. ~ Dustin Hoffman

I think ultimately what you really want is a few people within any label that are into the band enough to really work on it every day for a long time and to actually try a little bit. But obviously, the major labels have more money to spend, so if they feel like spending it, they have bigger resources there when you need them. It doesn't always necessarily translate into them doing a better job for a band, but I think especially if you're playing the game of commercial radio and making videos and stuff like that, that's sort of an expensive proposition. ~ Adam Schlesinger

Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by. ~ Austin Kleon

If you have Palestinians who have no hope, who don't have a job, who've used up all their resources, the notion of getting rid of violence is a dream. ~ James Wolfensohn

My first job was baby-sitting. I had a great time because I love kids. Sometimes, when I'm having a bad day, I'm like: "Oh, you know what? I'm going to chuck it in and become a kindergarten teacher!" ~ Anne Hathaway

Right now you can make a decision, ... If you truly decided to, you can do almost anything. So if you don't liike the current relationship you're in, make the decision now to change it. If you don't like your current job, change it. ~ Tony Robbins

The test of whether or not you can hold a job should not be in the arrangement of your chromosomes ~ Bella Abzug

There's an awful lot of choices in the world as far as what one can do for a living. It's best to be familiar with as many sectors of the working world as you can be so you'll be better at your creative job anyway. ~ Justine Bateman

It's not my job to make you happy. It's your job to learn that only those who quit selfishly seeking their own happiness find it. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Imagine learning all the great wisdom of the world just so that you can get a job. What an absurdity. We should be learning all the great wisdom of the world in order to become wise. ~ Eddie Campbell

Were passing by. Once I heard him making fun of Jules. Jules was walking down the street carrying a lamp in his hand that he'd obviously just pulled out of some garbage heap. "Look at the garbage picker man!" Alphonse said. "That motherfucker is sad. He tried to sell me a comforter once! I said get the hell away from me. He's out all night looking for rags and bones. What year we living in, man? Get a real job, motherfucker." Jules couldn't stand Alphonse either. He said Alphonse was a pimp. I didn't know what a pimp did exactly. I was almost certain that it meant he had prostitutes working for him, but I wasn't sure. I told a kid at school that I knew a pimp and he said, "Bullshit. It's not fucking possible. You're making it up." So I guessed I'd made a mistake. Or maybe the word "pimp" had two different meanings. I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING to make older guys want to treat me like I was one of them, ~ Heather O'Neill

Once a job it has begun, do not stop until it's done. Whether it is big or small, do it well or not all. ~ Bear Grylls

The thing that is really hard about adaptation is that I try to only pick things I love because if it is something where you think, "Oh, that sounds like an interesting idea but I don't love it," then I can't do my job well. ~ Andy Weir

I got my first job when I moved to Los Angeles. I worked at a coffee shop for five years and it was one of the best experiences I ever had. It was a bunch of actors covering shifts for each other and becoming great friends. ~ Katie Leclerc

My first professional job was actually at a place called Opryland U.S.A., which no longer exists, but I've been performing since I was a kid. ~ John Barrowman

I keep forgetting I'm speaking in an American accent sometimes. The dangerous thing is that you end up forgetting what your real accent is after a while! It's really strange; I've never done a job in an American accent before. ~ Robert Pattinson

When you - when you - and this is still going on today - are making your money by pushing paper around, when you should be making your money by investing venture capital in various job-creating things, that makes it much harder to recover. ~ Howard Dean

I've done a lot of pilots. A lot of shows. You're young and you do a job just because you know someone gave you a job. ~ John Slattery

I don't know, man. Look at me. I've changed. I've grown up. I've got a job, got a career ... I drink coffee now. ~ Bret McKenzie

After you get a job and before you have to do it. Nothing beats that. ~ Jerry Seinfeld

If you can't find a job, use your special gift to create a job. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

She came to this California university for one reason, she reminds herself: the paycheck. Although every time the paycheck arrives the amount taken out in taxes for a single woman with no dependents is so huge it stuns her. The money starts to feel like an insult: For this, she thinks, I've uprooted my life? Whatever money she might save, moreover, she usually spends trying to console herself. And it is hard to make any job financially worth its difficulties, she realizes, when you're constantly running out to J. C. Penney's to buy bathmats. ~ Lorrie Moore

These friends represent an oversimplified "orthodoxy," based on a misreading of the wisdom tradition to the effect that all troubles are punishments for wrongdoing. Their "comfort" consists largely of applying this message to Job, urging him to identify his sin and repent of it. ~ Anonymous

I come from a minimum wage working world, as we all did for at least some part of our lives, and that is never out of my rearview. I've never forgotten how much your feet hurt after you've stood on them for like 12 hours. And how the drudgery of a job you hate craps on your entire life; how you treat other people, how you treat yourself, and it really was getting to me. ~ Henry Rollins

As much as possible, connect your offer to the direct benefits customers will receive. Like the Alaska coupon books, a compelling offer pays for itself by making a clear value proposition. What people want and what they say they want are not always the same thing; your job is to figure out the difference. When developing an offer, think carefully about the objections and then respond to them in advance. Provide a nudge to customers by getting them to make a decision. The difference between a good offer and a great offer is urgency (also known as timeliness): Why should people act now? Offer reassurance and acknowledgment immediately after someone buys something or hires you. Then find a small but meaningful way to go above and beyond their expectations. ~ Anonymous

Far from the richest rapper, but my biggest personal achievement thus far in my life has been retiring my mom early from her job at the Post Office. It's a tiny payback for the sacrifices she made that allowed me to chase a far-fetched dream of becoming a successful artist. I'm forever grateful, ~ J. Cole

If you know why someone is doing what they're doing, why they're behaving the way they are, then that's your job to reveal that, and often that's situational. The storytelling does that, and then some of it's your job as an actor to make that subtext come to life. ~ Cate Blanchett

For me, writing is a job. I do not separate the work from the act of writing like two things that have nothing to do with each other. I arrange words one after another, or one in front of another, to tell a story, to say something that I consider important or useful, or at least important or useful to me. ~ Jose Saramago

If we raise our children to dream about getting that six-figure job, we just might be taking away their ability of having that seven-figure integrity. ~ Charles F. Glassman

You don't have to get out. I know how to let myself in," she said.
"I'll get you at the door and walk you to it when I return you. It's part of my job, woman," he said.
Her temper flared. "Don't you ever call me woman. I'm not backwoods white trash. I have a name and don't you forget it. ~ Carolyn Brown

Unfortunately, honesty hasn't always been a part of the job description for the police force, especially when dealing with our people. Today I must appeal to their sense of integrity, because we need the Mobile Police Department. Before we can do our job, they've got to do theirs... ~ Ravi Howard

But sports photography isn't something you just pick up overnight. You can't do it once a year for fun and expect to do a good job. And I take pride in what I do. ~ Drew Carey

Seeing what happens when you rip yourself open is what your job is all about. ~ Ed Harris

I still look at my job as being a doctor of the people, and I'm going to look at the science ... If we can find a viable alternative that gave us harm reduction as people are withdrawing from nicotine, I'm happy to engage in that science and see if we can do that. ~ Richard Carmona

Do you understand what's going on here?"
Hodgesaargh took another slow look at the scene. "No," he said.
"In that case's not my job to understand this sort of thing," said the falconer. "I wasn't trained. Probably takes a lot of training, understanding this. That's your job. And her job. Can you understand what's going on when a bird's been trained and'll make a kill and still came back to the wrist?"
"Well, no - "
"There you are, then. So that's all right. Cup of tea, was it? ~ Terry Pratchett

I don't come to work as an actor. There are many directors who can direct without ever having acted and do a great job and connect with their actors and lead them to excellent performances without themselves having had an acting background. ~ Abdellatif Kechiche

I'm an Air Force officer first, a pilot second and then Nicole. The female part is last ... My job is to be the best right wingman that I can be. ~ Nicole Malachowski

I can't wait to front my band with these new songs and play for fans, but I've decided to keep my day job too. ~ Richard Marx

It's a great sacrifice to do what I'm doing. I'm not having fun at all ... What a brutal job! ~ Silvio Berlusconi

Spending the next nine hours with a crying woman wal real close to the top of his "Avoid at All Costs" list right under untimely death and a desk job. ~ Tara Janzen

No matter what office LBJ assumed he lifted greater than when he found it. ~ David Pietrusza

I'm someone who came to Paris as a teenager, and I dreamed of coming back to Paris as a visitor. I never dreamed of having a job at the biggest luxury house in Paris and, you know, 15 odd years later, I'm still here. ~ Marc Jacobs

I've determined the ideal job for me is one where I can write clever essays about my life and my employer will give me enough money not only to live a comfortable existence, but also to buy many, many new pairs of shoes. ~ Jen Lancaster

I think the lie we've told people in the marketplace is that a degree gets you a job. A degree doesn't get you a job. What gets you a job is the ability to carry yourself into that room and shake a hand and look someone in the eye and have people skills. These are the things that cause people to become successful. ~ Dave Ramsey

When I build something for somebody, I always add $50 million or $60 million onto the price. My guys come in, they say it's going to cost $75 million. I say it's going to cost $125 million, and I build it for $100 million. Basically, I did a lousy job. But they think I did a great job. ~ Donald Trump

It could have been anyone," I said.
"All the women who look at you when we go out.
Ms. Bisette at school. God, even Hiyam. Why me?"
He stared at the coffee table,
the reflection of snow like confectioner's sugar sifting down.
"It couldn't have been anyone," he said softly.
"For a long time before I met you, I felt my life was this kind of test.
I was in deep, cold water, swimming for shore,
and my arms were getting tired,my skin numb.
On the shore was everything I thought I wanted: a better job, a house, a family."
He swallowed, his throat cording with tension.
"But I could barely keep my head above water.
Eventually I stopped seeing the shore. Only cold dark blue, in all directions.
I know it's cliché, but when I met you, my eyes opened.
I looked around, and realized I could stand up whenever I wanted.
There was firm ground under my feet.
That shore in the distance was an illusion.
I was already somewhere beautiful. ~ Leah Raeder

We need to stop fighting Christian against Christian. I have no time for anything but trying to love other people. That is a full-time job. ~ Anne Rice

Every time you say yes to something you don't want to do, this will happen: you will resent people, you will do a bad job, you will have less energy for the things you were doing a good job on, you will make less money, and yet another small percentage of your life will be used up, burned up, a smoke signal to the future saying, I did it again. ~ James Altucher

There is no way I could ever look somebody in the eye and say that I can make them feel good about the fact that they are losing their job. ~ Hector Ruiz

Hold yourself on your own. A man's job in a romantic dynamic is not to be your butler, bank account or your father. ~ Amy Chan

Getting a job scared her but she was determined not to shy away from risk. That's what life's all about. Climbing out onto the airplane wing and jumping off. ~ Wally Lamb

These things I'd learned when I was young: Life is short and men are cruel, and ponies are born to suffer. I decided that I would work as hard as I could at whatever job I was given, believing that I would earn my reward in the end and live forever in the ponies' place. ~ Iain Lawrence

I'd seen so many people become stagnant in New Jersey - I had this fear I'd just stay there. They'd come out of high school, get a job, get married, have kids and die in Jersey. I wanted more. ~ Frankie Valli

A leader's most important job is creating and constantly adjusting this strategic bridge between goals and objectives. ~ Richard P. Rumelt

Photojournalist? With a few exceptions, those of us working as photojournalists might now more appropriately call ourselves illustrators. For, unlike real reporters, whose job it is to document what's going down, most of us go out in the world expecting to give form to the magazine, or to newspaper editor's ideas, using what's become over the years a pretty standardized visual language. So we search for what is instantly recognizable, supportive of the text, easiest to digest, or most marketable - more mundane realities be damned. ~ Eugene Richards

Even though I didn't know I was applying for the job, I have somehow become the spokesperson for independent book stores. ~ Ann Patchett

The number one job of a leader is to protect the truth. ~ Roy Spence

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem. And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they're not. And somewhere in the shadows behind them-who? Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to? ~ Anonymous

Most actors will tell you that it takes a while to figure out what you want to be because we just want to do everything we see on TV and don't know that 'actor' is a job yet. ~ Rachelle Lefevre

Our job is not to amuse our readers. Our mission is to stir them, inform and inflame them. Our task is to continually hold up our government and our leaders to clear-eyed analysis, unaffected by professional spinmeisters and agenda-pushers. In these times, when those of us who are members of the 'reality-based community' are under relentless attack from both the right and the left, we must encourage, and our work must reflect, independent and non-ideological thinking. ~ Tony Auth

Butch didn't live in his own place. He didn't spend his own money. He had no job, no future. He was a well-kept pet, not a man. ~ J.R. Ward

I take my hat off to mums who have lots of kids. Anyone that says being a mum isn't a full-time job has obviously never had any. ~ Ashley Jensen

In the economy of Heaven, God does not send thunder if a still, small voice is enough, or a prophet if a priest can do the job. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

I was just the one who upgraded her software and made sure that nothing broke down. If anyone was equipped for the job, it was me, the professional computational linguist. ~ Elizabeth Bear

What you see on the field is my job. ~ Terrell Owens

It's instinct," he said then. "For centuries, it's been our job to protect our home, our women, and our children. We're emotional cowards. We don't talk about our feelings, we're not comfortable putting our soul into words. So we give of ourselves the only way we know how. We protect. We smother those we love in protection, fight for ways to keep them always safe, even from what we deem as a threat from themselves. It's in our genes, Kira. Right or wrong. Emotions are harder for a man to voice, strength is much easier for us to show. It's not an insult, it's the way men show their emotions for those they love. You can't change it."
"I can protect myself. ~ Lora Leigh

If you accept that your only job is to be the keeper of your life force, you will make powerful choices. ~ Debbie Ford

The job of the writer is to change the way the reader sees the world. ~ Richard Ford

The blank space can be humbling. But I've faced it my whole professional life. It's my job. It's also my calling. Bottom line: Filling this empty space constitutes my identity. ~ Twyla Tharp

Roadblock #5: It's Unpredictable
By and large, human beings don't like surprises. I know that I don't. Okay, maybe I like that rare piece of unexpected good news or a letter from a friend or a thoughtful thank-you. But I'm willing to bet that people in funny hats jumping out of dark closets are responsible for more heart attacks than expressions of unbridled delight. When the doorbell rings late at night, I'm under no illusion that it's the Publisher's Clearing House Prize Patrol!
This, most likely, goes back to our caveman past when a big, exciting surprise was apt to be something like an 800-pound,snarling, saber-toothed tiger about to rip the head from our shoulders. Surprises were usually bad news. (Think about this the next time you're crouching in the dark in somebody's front hall closet with their raincoats and umbrellas.) ~ Paul Powers

Your job is to commit to the process of becoming an entrepreneur and then to practice what entrepreneurs do so that entrepreneurship can find you when you've practiced enough to be ready. ~ Michael E. Gerber

I remember my first meeting with my management team when I became Indonesia's Minister of Finance. I was the youngest person and the first woman ever to hold that job. Everybody else in the room was male. I knew then that I had to work harder than any man to prove to them that I was capable. ~ Sri Mulyani Indrawati

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries you have these great nation states hurling their young men at one another. The victory was really going to rest on who could do the best job of bringing up their kids to become efficient and effective soldiers. That's pretty grandiose, I guess, but I do think that, and thank God it's been the armies of democracy that have emerged from this as the triumphant armies. ~ Stephen Ambrose

(Raphael) "I know why you refuse me, Daylighter, and it is not out of some pretended sense of rejection. You are so involved with the Shadowhunters, you think you are one of them. We have seen you with them. Instead of spending your nights in the hunt, as you should, you spend them with Valentine's daughter. You live with a werewolf. You are a disgrace."
(Simon) "Do you act like this with every job interview? ~ Cassandra Clare

Job, actually. I read it once a long time ago. It seems more frightening now though. The man who begins to doubt, who shouts out against his God, looking for a response, and who gets one. 'God gave the world to the wicked,' he says at one point, and 'Why should I bother?' at another." "It sounds interesting. But he goes on bothering?" "Yes, that's the incredible thing. ~ Ian Rankin

I don't think it's government's job to find health care for people. I think it's the individual's job to find health care. ~ Ted Cruz

I understand that you have an urgent task for me."
"I do."
"What is it?"
"I want you to go to the coffee shop and get me something to eat."
"That-" Lauren choked. "That's your idea of urgent?"
"Very urgent," Nick replied imperturbably. "I happen to be starved."
Lauren clenched her hands into fists. "To you I may mrely be some frivolous, amusing sexual object, but downstairs I have an important job to do, and Jim needs me."
"I need you,honey.I've been here since-"
"Don't you dare call me honey!" she burst out, reeling with unwanted joy at the casual endearment.
"Why not?" he cajoled, a smile lighting his face. "You're sweet."
"You won't think so if you call me honey again," Lauren promised.
His brows drew together at her tone, and Lauren had to remind herself that he was still her boss. "Oh all right!" she capitulated ungraciously. "What do you eat for breakfast?"
"Irritating secretaries," he mocked. ~ Judith McNaught

Baseball was my refuge. When I came on the field, I did my job, and did the best I could and focused on that. Then I went home and I was miserable. That was pretty much my routine every day.? ~ Joey Votto

The air is so crisp it gives me a brief, delusive sense of health and youth.
those I don't have but I have learned not to scorn the substitutes: quiet, plenty of time, and a job to spend it on. ~ Wallace Stegner

My only job as an actor is to try and understand the character and, to the best of my ability, bring this character to life. ~ Patrick Warburton

[N]early every creationist debater will mention the second law of thermodynamics and argue that complex systems like the earth and life cannot evolve, because the second law seems to say that everything in nature is running down and losing energy, not getting more complex. But that's NOT what the second law says; every creationist has heard this but refuses to acknowledge it. The second law only applies to closed systems, like a sealed jar of heated gases that gradually cools down and loses energy. But the earth is not a closed system
it constantly gets new energy from the sun, and this (through photosynthesis) is what powers life and makes it possible for life to become more complex and evolve. It seems odd that the creationists continue to misuse the second law of thermodynamics when they have been corrected over and over again, but the reason is simple: it sounds impressive to their audience with limited science education, and if a snow job works, you stay with it. ~ Donald R. Prothero

Desperation works in job search as well as it does in dating. ~ Darrell Gurney

It's my job as president and Congress's job to make sure that there's some rules of the road that people are gonna abide by, and that we've got transparency and accountability. But this stuff is being posted. And one of the things that we're gonna do is put together an independent board on the recovery package. ~ Barack Obama

Yes, being black is a full-time job: sometimes you are invisible, other times you are hyper-visible," he says. "Sometimes you are welcome, other times you are not. The thermostat is always moving and you have to keep adapting to find some comfort level. Richard Pryor used to talk about going to Africa and people there telling him he was white. Even though he was black, he just wasn't black enough. ~ Paul Beatty

Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked generation after generation; give them 3000 calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

Playing Elizabeth Taylor was probably the hardest job I've ever done. ~ Sherilyn Fenn

I guess because deejaying has become my job, I tend to listen to really horrible stuff on my spare time. If you heard my iPod you'd be like, "what the hell?" ~ Neil Armstrong