“I have never written an advertisement in the office. Too many interruptions. I do all my writing at home.”
—David Ogilvy
(Via Letters of Note.)
“The acts that are at once the means and ends of education, knowing, thinking, understanding, judging, are all committed in solitude. It is only in a mind that the work of the mind can be done.”
—Richard Mitchell, The Graves of Academe
(Via Michael Leddy.)
Today on reddit, comedian and television auteur Louis C.K. took questions. It being reddit, the thing’s a pain in the ass to read, but I particularly liked this exchange:
Q: How on earth were you able to gain the incredible amount of authorial control that you have over Louie? Have you had to battle with FX over any particular jokes/concepts/creative choices?
A: I got it by demanding it and refusing to do the show any other way at all and by having the leverage that I was completely willing to walk away without doing the show and by agreeing to an extremely low budget so that they could offset the risk of giving me this freedom because they are risking less money.
Elsewhere Louis talks about how he edits his TV show by himself on his MacBook.
The whole thing reminded me of Bill Cunningham’s sage advice, “If you don’t take the money, they can’t tell you what to do.”
(Via Curved White.)
Related viewing: Mike Monteiro’s “Fuck You, Pay Me” talk.
One of John Lennon’s handwritten to-do lists is up for auction.
Waiting for the cable guy, books you’ve lent out and want back, books you want to read, pick up some marmalade at the store, get gas. Stars – they’re just like us!
(Via Michael Leddy.)
“Someone has to not be tweeting all the time, someone has to be thinking about things which need a long attention span and trying to organise material and build up strong foundations instead of rushing off across the frontier. It takes a long time to put out something that has the right style; I have to really think about it and if I’m going to do it right I have to spend a lot of time focussed on it.”
“The main thing is to never, ever work. I just sit around all day doing what Americans call hanging out.… I sit in a room all day. I answer the phone. I do crossword puzzles. I write letters. I open a tin of soup or fry an egg. I wash my socks. I file my nails. I do all the things that other people do on their day off. Except I do them every day.”
—Quentin Crisp
“In America there is so much pressure about work, work, work, that it gets into your bones without your realizing it. It is a most unhealthy atmosphere. Work is very bad for you if too frequently engaged in.”
—Geogre Sanders
“Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don’t have time for such study.”
Posted in inspiration, quotes, work
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