Make A Living Quotes

It was depressing, very depressing. I worried about how I would make a living. I didn't want to stay on the farm. It didn't offer the challenge I wanted and yet, without a college education, I felt that I was really out of luck. ~ Clyde Tombaugh

I have two college degrees, but the only way I could make a living was by showing kids how to put a ball in a hole. ~ Red Auerbach

How do you make a living if you're writing a book?" Joshua asked. The boy was getting a bike for Christmas that's all there was to it.
David squirmed in his seat. "It doesn't pay anything yet."
"So, then what do you do to pay the bills?" Joshua asked. Forget the bike, he was getting a go-cart. ~ R.L. Mathewson

If you could start children right from the beginning with this thought, you'd see the effect it has on their lives. In fact, I did this with my own children. Again and again, I told them there was a reason why they were here, and they had to find out what that reason was for themselves. From the age of four years, they heard this. I also taught them to meditate when they were about the same age, and I told them, "I never, ever want you to worry about making a living. If you're unable to make a living when you grow up, I'll provide for you, so don't worry about that. I don't want you to focus on doing well in school. I don't want you to focus on getting the best grades or going to the best colleges. What I really want you to focus on is asking yourself how you can serve humanity, and asking yourself what your unique talents are. Because you have a unique talent that no one else has, and you have a special way of expressing that talent, and no one else has it. ~ Deepak Chopra

I would love to be able to direct episodic television, because it's a great way to make a living, and it's something where I think I could utilize my talents as well as my ability to work fast. ~ Frank Whaley

I've always had a passion for music, but I never saw me as a musician for a living. I never thought that I could make a living. It never dawned on me. ~ Kaskade

I've been in more than 20 movies. You just do the best you can and try to make a living. ~ Sam Rockwell

If we lived close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons as metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era does not come from agriculture - it comes from manufacturing. We do not believe that we 'grow' our lives - we believe that we 'make' them. Just listen to how we use the word in everyday speech: we make time, make friends, make meaning, make money, make a living, make love. ~ Parker J. Palmer

For me personally, I'm constantly trying to really re-negotiate how I'm going to make a living because I can't make a living solely off editorial. And I'm also still trying to tell long feature stories that are harder and harder to get assigned, you know. ~ Lynsey Addario

When I came into boxing, when it was more out of control, no fighters got an opportunity to fight. I came in: everybody got an opportunity to make a living in America. ~ Don King

The universe, it appeared, had never been kind to Captain Bortrek, conspiring against him in a fashion that Threepio privately considered unlikely given the man's relative unimportance. Knowing what he did about the Alderaan social structure, shipping regulations, the psychology of law enforcement agents, and the statistical behavior patterns of human females, Threepio was much inclined to doubt that so many hundreds of people would spend that much time thinking up ways to thwart and injure a small-time free-trader who was, by his own assertion, only trying to make a living. ~ Barbara Hambly

Lately, because computer technology has made self-publishing an easier and less expensive venture, I'm getting a lot of review copies of amateur books by writers who would be better advised to hone their craft before committing it to print. The best thing you can do as a beginning writer is to write, write, write - and read, read, read. Concentrating on publication prematurely is a mistake. You don't pick up a violin and expect to play Carnegie Hall within the year - yet somehow people forget that writing also requires technical skills that need to be learned, practiced, honed. If I had a dollar for every person I've met who thought, with no prior experience, they could sit down and write a novel and instantly win awards and make their living as a writer, I'd be a rich woman today. It's unrealistic, and it's also mildly insulting to professional writers who have worked hard to perfect their craft. Of course, then you hear stories about people like J.K. Rowling, who did sit down with no prior experience and write a worldwide best-seller...but such people are as rare as hen's teeth. Every day I work with talented, accomplished writers who have many novels in print and awards to their name and who are 'still' struggling to make a living. The thing I often find myself wanting to say to new writers is: Write because you love writing, learn your craft, be patient, and be realistic. Anais Nin said about writing, "It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it bre ~ Terri Windling

I started to make some commercials, which was a way for me to finally make a living at last. But it was only really a couple of films in that it looked like a viable career option. ~ Lenny Abrahamson

I think from the time I was a kid I've been an entertainer. I've always had the ability to play characters. When I came to California, I was overwhelmed that you could do this and get paid for it, make a living on it, and be creative within this art form. ~ Matt Schulze

You have to spend a lot more time on the road these days if you want to make a living with music. ~ Scott Weiland

I just thank God I can make a living doing something I enjoy as much as I do playing music. ~ Charlie Daniels

When I was in school, I was very much into just sports, mostly basketball, and didn't really see myself as much of a student. But once I got into college, I figured I wasn't going to be play beyond college. I started to think what was I going to do, since I wouldn't be able to make a living with basketball. There were a couple of things I liked to do. I wrote poetry, spoken word mostly. ~ Matt De La Pena

I've really dreamed of doing television. All of us do television, coming up. But when I was coming up, television was a black hole for actors. Now, television has a certain cache. Now everybody wants to be on TV because they're doing adult dramas. If you're an actor, it's like, "Well, get me on television," because it's the only place you can do it and also make a living at it. If my kids need shoes, I better do a TV show because I damn sure don't make any money with independent films. ~ Billy Bob Thornton

I'm a commercial-minded songwriter. I'm here to make a living and be on the radio. ~ Shane McAnally

Screenwriting is a terrible way to make a living and I always try to talk anyone out of it. Until you sit in a story meeting with studio executives with no particular ability or actors who haven't even graduated high school telling you exactly how to change your script, you haven't experienced what it's really like to be a screenwriter in Hollywood. Also, unlike novelists and playwrights, you don't own the copyright on your original material. It hurts when you sell a project you love and then suddenly the project you really cared about will never see the light of day. ~ Amy Holden Jones

In 1840, the year that Victoria and Albert were married, no woman in the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could vote, be elected to parliament or any other public office, attend the university, or enter a profession. If a woman married, her property, her earnings, her children, and her body legally belonged to her husband, to do with as he willed. The world of business was more hostile to women in 1840 than it had been in 1740 or 1640, and though many women were forced to work, a bare handful could make a living wage. ~ Gillian Gill

I love doing independent films, but it's very hard to make a living that way. ~ Dennis Quaid

Maintaining healthy forests is essential to those who make a living from the land and for those of us who use them for recreational purposes. ~ Cathy McMorris Rodgers

You just want to be able to have a nice career and make a living at it. ~ Rafael Palmeiro

If it took seven days to make a living with a restaurant, then we needed to be in some other line of work. ~ S. Truett Cathy

It was a silly time to try to make a living out of words, but it was a silly time in general. ~ Steven Kotler

Through all of this lovely interviewing, and nice things people say, and the rest of it, I have learned that I am an actor. That is my profession. That is my job. That is how I make a living. So I am just out there making a living. ~ Melissa Leo

The corporation is the "master", the employee is the "servant". Because the corporation owns the means of production without which the employee could not make a living, the employee needs the corporation more than vice versa. ~ Peter Drucker

If I can make a living as a writer, I can do anything. ~ Richard LaGravenese

I never thought that I could make a living out of my voice, to be completely honest. I thought that I could probably keep playing pubs. And it was exciting for me to get even just a pub gig in my town or country, when I went to university. ~ Ellie Goulding

Also, said Freddie, I work nights to make a living and pay my way through college. You know what that's like, Mr. McCourt. I don't see what that has to do with your writing. Also, it's not easy when you're black in this society. Oh, Christ, Freddie. It's not easy being anything in this society. All right. You want an A? You'll get it. I don't want to be accused of bigotry. No, I don't want it just because you're pissed off or because I'm black. I want it because I deserve it. I ~ Frank McCourt

I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong. ~ Paulo Coelho

The theatre, which is my most comfortable place, unfortunately it's very hard to make a living in. ~ Kevin Conroy

My friends started having children after college, while I was pursuing this crazy acting career and living hand to mouth. Plus, all my boyfriends were artists struggling to make a living. Having kids didn't make any sense - why would I take on more of a financial burden when I couldn't even afford a dog? ~ Edie Falco

I don't know if you ever say to yourself that you want to be an actress. It eventually becomes a social function - you are an actress and you make a living out of it, but at the beginning it's more a matter of how to survive, or how to exist in a certain way. ~ Isabelle Huppert

If you get involved in music expecting to make a living out of it, then you've picked the wrong thing to do. That shouldn't really be in your mind. ~ Jarvis Cocker

One of the things I learned from my father, and it did not serve me well at all, was that he was a successful writer, he earned a living. And it was a shock for me to find out that it was actually hard to make a living as a writer. ~ Michael Tolkin

Let me tell you who I am: I'm a girl from New Jersey who moved to New York and worked in a bar while trying to make a living at what I really wanted to do, which was act. ~ Piper Perabo

I'm happy that I feel a little less out of place in filmmaking than I once was - but it's almost impossible for a playwright in the U.S. to make a living. You can have a play, like I did with 'Angels,' and it still generates income for me, but it's not enough for me to live on and have health insurance. ~ Tony Kushner

You don't have to make, you know, $3 Million dollars a movie, or $20 Million dollars a movie, but if you make a living doing what you love doing, then that's success to me. ~ Ving Rhames

So many of my dreams were to actually be able to make a living of what I did as a hobby. ~ Rick Baker

You know, and the fact that Nina Simone had to start playing in clubs and sing because her parents had moved north to support her music education. You know, so she had to sing. She had to make a living 'cause she was supporting her family. So poverty and race put her in this place which, you know, created enormous success, but it's not what her psyche was all about. ~ Liz Garbus

Regarding pushing the form, ideas interest me more than form. I think you can write a very subversive play in a three-act structure. The content makes the play. I feel the form is simply dressing, because ultimately, you want to communicate to the audience, and sometimes the best way to do that is to present a provocative idea in a format that is comfortable for them to receive. Then the idea will come through directly, right in solar plexus. After all, I want to make a living as an artist, and that means speaking to the audience in a form they can understand. ~ Caridad Svich

Nothing would more quickly and definitively reduce U.S. income inequality than allowing every worker in all businesses to participate in deciding the range of incomes from one worker to another. They would never do what is nowadays a matter of normality: give one person millions, in some cases billions, while others have barely enough to make a living. ~ Richard D. Wolff

The bounty hunter looked at him long and hard. Until Tawny Owl's smirk finally vanished. 'Indeed,' he said. 'Everyone has to make a living. Some earn money doing what they've learned. Others do what they have to. But not many craftsmen have been as lucky in life as I am: they pay me for a trade I truly and honestly enjoy. Not even whores can say that. ~ Andrzej Sapkowski

Theater is not to make a living, so I don't have the money pressure. ~ Dianne Wiest

We get to make a living; we give to make a life. ~ Winston Churchill

Eviction," Frieda said. "You can't pay, you can't stay." She said in Yiddish, "Es iz shver tzu makhen a leben." It's hard to make a living. ~ Amy Bloom

To make a living is no longer enough. Work also has to make a life. ~ Peter Drucker

I think it was 1987 - something like that - or '86, and I thought, 'When you go equity and you're gonna get paid, you'll finally be able to make a living.' But it was not to be so. I always bartended and waited tables so I ended up not doing theater for about a year because nobody would hire me. ~ Denis O'Hare

Television allows you to actually make a living, feed your children, send them to college and important significant things. To have the ability, the luxury, to make the choices of doing little movies where people cannot pay you. ~ Patricia Arquette

I gotta make a living somehow, and make ends meet. I accept the idea of having a retirement. ~ Ted Leo

Farmers and people who make a living from the land are finding it impossible to survive. So the first step is to get out of that place. Come to the city where there are opportunities. ~ Mohsin Hamid

These days people believe they can go into art and make a living. We didn't have that. The abstract expressionists were older, by the time they even got a show. Now people come right out of school and sell. ~ Brice Marden

I grew silent and reserved as the nature of the world in which I lived became plain and undeniable; the bleakness of the future affected my will to study. Granny had already thrown out hints that it was time for me to be on my own. But what had I learned so far that would help me to make a living? Nothing. I could be a porter like my father before me, but what else? And the problem of living as a Negro was cold and hard. What was it that made the hate of whites for blacks so steady, seemingly so woven into the texture of things? What kind of life was possible under that hate? How had this ~ Richard Wright

Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it. ~ Seth Godin

Singing has always been a part of my life. I started at Opryland singing, and I realized I could make a living at it. I thought it was something I would grow out of. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. Everything's just sorta fallen into place. ~ Kassie DePaiva

Ninety-eight per cent of actors who actually make a living do so in front of a camera. ~ Julian Fellowes

Edward [Weston] was the first artist - and I don't use the word lightly - to make a living doing art photography. Other photographers did commercial work, or worked for the government. ~ Rondal Partridge

Look, there's no denying that comics have moved dramatically into the mainstream in North American culture in the last 10 years, and for someone like me who's always tried to make a living at it, it's been great, I'm very grateful for it. But at the same time, it's not a subculture-y thing anymore; it's something that's in the New York Times and the New Yorker. ~ Adrian Tomine

And one thing we want during this war on terror is for people to feel like their life's moving on, that they're able to make a living and send their kids to college and put more money on the table. ~ George W. Bush

That's right ... I never felt a sense of superiority because I could see spirits. And I never once thought that I could make a living or help someone with it. I just longed for a life where I couldn't see them. And I finally got what I always wanted. ~ Tite Kubo

Before civilization, artists painted for the living. Today, most paint for a living. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I never thought I would make a living as a pencil-sharpener. The first goal was: I don't want to lose money. And then the goal was: I want to see if 100 people buy my pencils. I just kept upping the benchmarks. ~ David Rees

This is a story of almost unimaginable tragedy. Indigenous people looking back on five centuries since the European invasion began to know what comes after the end of the world. Their ancestors' lives and culture were ended due to war, disease, and starvation. The impact of colonization continues to influence Indigenous peoples' lives. Over the past several hundred years, their lands, resources, and livelihoods have been taken away or destroyed. With few ways to make a living and to feel purpose and a connection to the world at large, they struggle to create thriving and healthy communities. ~ Eldon Yellowhorn

Writers have the purity of their art and what they want to achieve with that, and that this purity is bound up with the messy material conditions of trying to make a living while doing that work. ~ Chad Harbach

The thing about the Internet is that you can write something ... for a very narrow audience and make a living at it. ~ Randall Munroe

I have to make a living, and I have been in a few films I wish I hadn't been in, but I don't know where things will lead me next, and that's exciting. ~ Kim Basinger

If everyone were like him (Mitch Williams) I wouldn't play. I'd find a safer way to make a living. ~ Andy Van Slyke

There are musicians who want to make a living making music. There are listeners who want to listen to music. Complicating this relationship is a whole bunch of history: some of the music I want to listen to was made a while ago in a different economy. Some of the models of making a living making music are no longer valid but persist. ~ Kent Beck

There are three goals for any comedian: to make a living as a comedian; I've been fortunate to do that. To make a name for yourself and to be famous would be great - because it would give me that freedom. ~ Alonzo Bodden

In American culture you leave home at 18. In the Asian culture, your parents don't really want you to leave home. So my parents just thought I was going to be one of those kids. I was like, "I'm never going to make a living at whatever I do." I just liked pretty things. ~ Jason Wu

The years move forward and everyone is attending to their life's priorities, focusing on how to be happy, make a living, raise a family. The years turn into decades and sooner or later, (hopefully later) sickness or accidents happen and all are again confronted with the big questions: Why? What's next? What has this life that I've lived been about? As one begins to consider their own eventual departure: What have I been able to do to make things a little better? What have I passed along to make others' lives more beautiful? ~ Gene O'Neil

Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you.
If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego. ~ David Brin

Most people I meet are stupid. Now, nobody likes to be labeled as stupid because they don't want to know the truth about themselves, that they're more useful dead than alive. The vast majority of those that meet me for the first time don't believe that I've worked as a College Professor, or that I make a living as a writer. In fact, many have stopped talking to me because they believe I make a living doing something illegal, something criminal. It's easier for them to believe that I'm just a criminal, than to accept that I'm one of the most famous bestselling writers in the entire planet. The ones that reach the next level, will ask me if I belong to any secret organization, if I speak to demons or if I channel the dead, or even if I steal information from the internet and other authors. Now, what they can't see, is that the more they talk such things, the more they show me their real nature. They are very, really very, stupid. They can't see an elephant in front of their nose; they can't see an intelligent human being in front of their face; they are indeed very stupid and that's a fact, not an assumption. ~ Robin Sacredfire

At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living. ~ Neil Postman

I was always fast riding bikes with my brother who got me on a bike. There was little to do so I ended up riding everywhere. It was both my transportation, entertainment, and a good way perhaps to make a living I hope. ~ Peter Sagan

When you find errors in conventional wisdom-when everyone says A and A is not true-you gain competitive advantage. Only a few times do you have to find errors in conventional wisdom to make a living. ~ Larry Ellison

Art and relligion are not professions: they are not occupations for which men can be paid. The artist and the saint do what they have to do, not to make a living, but in obedience to some mysterious necessity. They do not product to live - they live to produce. ~ Clive Bell

In Southeast Asia the world is understood to be a vast, complex network of interdependent relationships. So when global capitalism makes it impossible for small-time rice farmers to feed their families and make a living, it is a natural thing for anyone in the family who can find an alternative source of income to do so. ~ John Burdett

All I ever intended was to make a living at what I do. Everything I've achieved since then is above and beyond. ~ Shania Twain

I should say I am not much of a gamer - anymore. The reason for this is that I have to make a living, and my body requires vitamin D, and I've come to value the heady pleasures of human interaction over the temporary exhilaration of reaching the 'next level.' ~ Lynn Coady

"Ideals are like stars," Carl Schurz wrote. "You will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like seafarers on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny." Ideals do not determine what we do to make a living in life; They govern what we become as we do it. ~ Joan D. Chittister

There was also more practical inquiry. How should I make a living? How do I get my relatives out of my house? Could you help me postpone payment of this loan? The dervishes had jobs in the workday world: mason, weaver, bookbinder, grocer, hatmaker, tailor, carpenter. They were craftsmen and -women, not renunciates of everyday life, but affirmative makers and ecstatics. Some people call them sufis, or mystics. I say they're on the way of the heart. ~ Coleman Barks

In the system of conservative moral categories, government regulation falls under interference with the pursuit of self-interest by people trying to make a living, people using their self-discipline to become self-reliant (and, if possible, rich). These are the good people in our society. We want to encourage people like them and it is wrong to put roadblocks in their way. The ~ George Lakoff

While I used to make my living principally as a record producer, as time went on, I had to depend more and more on my live performances because of the evolution of the record industry, which has de-emphasized what made it possible to make a living. ~ Todd Rundgren

There is not a man in the country that can't make a living for himself and family. But he can't make a living for them and his government, too, the way his government is living. What the government has got to do is live as cheap as the people ~ Will Rogers

The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living. ~ Ann Patchett

If it takes seven days to make a living, you ought to be doing something else. ~ S. Truett Cathy

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism-if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities ... You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer. ~ Bill Gates

Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job you can make a living, but if you work hard on yourself you'll make a fortune. ~ Jim Rohn

I feel incredibly successful. I make a living as a writer and am able to help support a big family, my church, my bleeding-heart causes. ~ Anne Lamott

There are so many ways to make a living that don't involve hiding in bushes opposite houses of 18-year-old girls with a camera in your hand. ~ Jamie Dornan

For many observers, a child who has known nothing but war, a child for whom the Kalashnikov is the only way to make a living and for whom the bush is the most welcoming community, is a child lost forever for peace and development. I contest this view. For the sake of these children, it is essential to prove that another life is possible. ~ Ishmael Beah

I'm not going to pursue it the way that actors pursue it which means going to all of the auditions and getting a job and all that stuff, because I don't really need to get a job because I have a job as a writer/director. That's how I make my living mostly now. So I don't need to make a living as an actress. ~ Julie Delpy

I'm thrilled I can make a living doing something I enjoy. ~ Gary Sinise

Romantic poetry had its heyday when people like Lord Byron were kicking it large. But you try and make a living as a poet today, and you'll find it's very different! ~ Alan Moore

My parents were serious working musicians, but they were not stars - not like pop stars that you have now. They had to make a living and that meant touring, working hard, going on the road - and we were roped in. ~ Rufus Wainwright

Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked. ~ Alfred Nobel

I love being on stage or in front of the camera. My work brings me a lot of joy. It helps me figure out who I am. I'm really lucky that I get to make a living at acting. ~ Dana Delany