By trade I am a metal fabricator, so I have a degree in custom automotive fabrication.

I'm a very methodical writer. Before computers, I used reams of paper and stacks of index cards.

I think what has allowed me to be successful is that I can absorb more information than most and drill down to the key business elements of that information and make faster decisions. And of course, I truly try to enjoy every minute of my life. I can never understand why anyone wouldn't.

We tend to think we can be happy only if we're number one. But if you want to be number one, you have to devote all your time and energy to your work.

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

If we want to be spiritual, then, let us first of all live our lives. Let us not fear the responsibilities and the inevitable distractions of the work appointed for us by the will of God.

The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God's will in my work. In this way I become His instrument. He works through me.

The function of a university is to teach a [person] how to drink tea, not because anything is important, but because it is usual to drink tea, or for that matter anything else under the sun. And whatever you do, every act, however small, can teach you everything, provided you see who is acting." ? Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton On Prayer

Only a man who works purely for God can at the same time do a very good job and leave the results of the job to God alone.

Kathleen Norris, on the publication of her 78th book. 'All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?

Both liturgy and what is euphemistically termed 'domestic work' also have an intense relation with the present moment, a kind of faith in the present that fosters hope and makes life seem possible in the day-to-day.

She accused him of having grandiose ideas and sloppy habits, a fatal combination for a writer.