Top 100 Finishing It Quotes
#1. I started a novel right before 'The Imitation Game,' so it's funny now, four years later, to be coming almost back to finishing it.
Graham Moore
#2. Sometimes you need to live with a painting for a while. Starting a painting can be easy, but finishing it ... that's the skill of the painter, how you finally know when it's done.
Elizabeth Neel
#3. The merit in action lies in finishing it to the end.
Genghis Khan
#4. It's easy to get published once you have written a really good book and the hard part, 99 percent of what you need to worry about, is really finishing it.
Laini Taylor
#5. That's another sort of being haunted: starting something and never finishing it.
Caitlin R. Kiernan
#6. I don't usually give out advice or recipes, but you must let the person looking at the photograph go some of the way to finishing it. You should offer them a seed that will grow and open up their minds.
Robert Doisneau
#7. O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy ... In finishing it I found ... such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
William James
#8. Are you done eating that?"
"What?"
"You shouldn't finish that, Dad's gonna want some."
"The hell he will."
"He will."
"It's so nasty. Son, it's so nasty."
"Then why are you finishing it?"
"Taking a bullet.
Jesse Andrews
#9. The best part of all, the absolutely most delicious part, is finishing it and then doing it over I rewrite a lot, over and over again, so that it looks like I never did.
Toni Morrison
#10. It is a comforting thing to know that the Lord will not begin the good work without also finishing it.
D.L. Moody
#11. Flannery revealed she had been working on the novel "a year and a half and will probably be two more years finishing it." She described her writing habits in a letter dated July 13: "I must tell you how I work. I don't have my novel outlined and I have to write to discover what I am doing.
Flannery O'Connor
#12. Read a book without thinking about finishing it. Just read it. Enjoy every word, sentence, and paragraph. Don't wish for it to end, or for it to never end.
Matt Haig
#14. After college, I was living in New York and wrote furiously, a huge novel that I knew was a failure. I hoped that the book would work, but to be honest, I think I knew it would never work, even as I was finishing it.
Chang-rae Lee
#15. Oh, and one more thing: if I try something that I've never done before, something that's particularly difficult for me, and it doesn't work out, that doesn't make it a failure. The fact that I actually succeeded in finishing it makes it a huge success. Think of all the people that never even try.
Sebastian Cole
#16. What's the best part about writing a book?
Finishing it.
Rick Riordan
#17. Last night. I couldn't put that book down. I was awake till four this morning finishing it. I didn't know reading could be like that, I had no idea.
Jill Mansell
#18. For me,the greater part of writing is daydreaming, dreaming the dream of my story until it hatches out-the writing down of it I always find hard.But I love finishing it,then holding the book in my hand and sharing my dream with my readers.
Michael Morpurgo
#19. What we got is NOW, Huck, and now is forever. Until it ain't. So, you can't worry over nothing except putting off the end a your story as long as you can, and finishing it with a bang.
Robert Coover
#20. The last word should be the last word. It is like a finishing touch given to color; there is nothing more to add. But what precaution is needed in order not to put the last word first.
Joseph Joubert
#21. Everyone looks like they've just stepped out of a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting that he never got around to finishing because even he knew it was too over the top. It
Joe Queenan
#22. If it were possible for any one person or group of persons to go through a photographic finishing plant's work at the end of a day, you could probably pull out the most extraordinary photographic exhibition we've ever seen. On almost any subject. The trouble is to find the things.
Edward Steichen
#23. While sincerity and over-anxiety can spoil a picture, through superfluous elaboration and unnecessary correction, the carelessness that would leave it in an unfinished state is even more reprehensible.
Walter J. Phillips
#24. The marathon is a charismatic event. It has everything. It has drama. It has competition. Every jogger can't dream of being an Olympic champion, but he can dream of finishing a marathon.
Fred Lebow
#25. After finishing my drink I feel a pressure in my lower regions, and I realize I have to piss. Since the Dead don't drink, urination is a rare event. I hope I can remember how to do it.
Isaac Marion
#26. When you're done shooting, the movie that you're going to release when you're done shooting is as bad as it will ever be. And then through editing, and finishing the effects and adding music, you get to make the movie better again. So I'm really hard on myself and on the movie.
Barry Sonnenfeld
#27. It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.
Paulo Coelho
#28. At the end of the race nobody really cares about how you started, so stay laser focused and finish strong. Get ready to proclaim "I did it!
Farshad Asl
#29. It has often been said that [ ... ] the Japanese [are] geniuses at taking foreign ideas and adding a unique finishing touch.
Robert Reed
#30. If it weren't for the fact that he'd been flat on his back in a full body cast, then recovering, he probably would be glad he missed finishing the school year since it meant he's now enrolled at his version of Hogwarts.
Andrea Cremer
#31. The anti-feminism bacllash has been set off not by women's achievement of full equality but by the increased possibility that they might win it. It is a pre-emptive strike that stops women long before they reach the finishing line.
Susan Faludi
#33. I'm writing all the time. I tend to work on at least two books simultaneously. I'll spend time with one, and then I'll spend time with the other. Finishing takes whatever time it takes.
Alice McDermott
#34. Finishing is torture ... There's always some newly seen flaw. But the little glimpses of beauty between the anxiety make it worth it.
Jacob Collins
#35. I just get focused on whatever is in front of me. When I was filming Crossroads, it had all my focus. Now I'm all focused on finishing my recording so I can get that out. It's just day by day.
Taryn Manning
#37. Finishing things take power, but it makes you more powerful.
Sherman Toppin
#38. It started as a hobby when I was a kid, and I'm finishing as a hobby.
Dick Trickle
#39. Effective listening is more than simply avoiding the bad habit of interrupting others while they are speaking or finishing their sentences. It's being content to listen to the entire thought of someone rather than waiting impatiently for your chance to respond.
Richard Carlson
#40. There is today a frightful disappearance of living species, be they plants or animals. And it's clear that the density of human beings has become so great, if I can say so, that they have begun to poison themselves. And the world in which I am finishing my existence is no longer a world that I like.
Claude Levi-Strauss
#41. Perfume puts the finishing touch to elegance - a detail that subtly underscores the look, an invisible extra that completes a man and a woman's personality. Without it there is something missing.
Gianni Versace
#42. I've been working on my finishing for quite some time. It's just a question of paying attention to the minor details.
Cobi Jones
#43. The narrative that Peter Jackson has put into 'The Battle of the Five Armies,' it stands alone as a film. Rather than just finishing off the story, it's like a whole new adventure all of its own. I'm very excited about it.
Richard C. Armitage
#44. Not just starting marathons but actually finishing them ... (no matter how long it takes) will always lead to making a better you.
Timothy Pina
#45. For a moment I considered finishing the job with Katherine's knife, but it's good insurance to let ineffective jailers live.
Mark Lawrence
#46. They make Spy Kids, they make Scream, they make A Scary Movie. This doesn't do that, so it could be a very bad marriage. I'm trying to keep this potential nightmare quiet because we're just finishing editing.
Terry Gilliam
#47. We painted a beautiful picture, but we just didn't finish it. Finishing is the difference between a beautiful picture and a masterpiece.
Don Meyer
#48. If you're having trouble finishing a book, it might be that you're trying to fix it as you go. Just finish the story, no matter how terrible you think that first draft is. Then let it cool off. In other words, don't look at it for a while. Then you can rewrite it.
Kimberly Willis Holt
#49. It's not how much you do, it's how often you do it. It simply doesn't matter if you make some monumental effort at any given time. You have it in your to give that extra little bit. You know that you could add that finishing touch. You know you can take that extra step.
Vince Poscente
#50. I don't attend an actual school but I'm still following through with high school. I do work with a tutor for about six hours a day. It's hard core but definitely worth it, and it's my main focus now - finishing up high school before I release my new album and apply to college.
Jojo
#51. Persistence is important in every endeavor. Whether it's finishing your homework, completing school, working late to finish a project, or "finishing the drill" in sports, winners persist to the point of sacrifice in order to achieve their goals.
Lee Ellis
#52. Much of the stress that people feel doesn't come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they've started.
David Allen
#53. You know, I started this process of being a football player and I'm going to make it to the NFL very soon and I plan on finishing that. And by 'finishing that,' I mean that I'm going to go out and be the best that I can be and put everything forth to make that happen.
Robert Griffin III
#54. Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions.
Oscar Hammerstein II
#55. My fondest wish, I suppose, would be to die at the keyboard right after finishing a book, perhaps with a little time off to have some really good sex. It's not, 'Oh, thank God, this is book No. 250. I can die now.'
Nora Roberts
#56. We do like digital projection. We like shooting on film, finishing digitally, and projection digitally. That's what I like best. It's still a movie. It's not someone's camcorder and it got projected. That's mean, I know.
Zack Snyder
#57. I have the wonderful pleasure of finishing the book and closing it. And I don't read them later.
Toni Morrison
#58. It is a valuable thing for an intelligencer to be forgotten.
Gail Carriger
#59. Instead of finishing the sentence she slid a business card across the counter. It listed her contact information for every social media site I'd heard of, and several that were still in beta. Except for Google Plus. Even Internet-addicted fairies have standards.
Alex Shvartsman
#60. If you've worked over all of your drawing, it should finish itself - often when you least expect it.
Stan Smith
#61. We've observed that people who stall in their personal growth work often have counterproductive soft addictions that stand in their way of growth and having the life they say they want. It can be a simple thing, such as watching TV instead of finishing a project.
Judith Wright
#62. Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.
Truman Capote
#63. more than 90 percent of the female runners come home with a buckle, while 50 percent of the men come up with an excuse. Not even Ken Chlouber can explain the sky-high female finishing rate, but he can damn well exploit it: "All my pacers are women," Chlouber says. "They get the job done.
Christopher McDougall
#64. You don't realize what a strain it is on the nerves to write or think-of-writing all day long, and to sleep full of nervous dreams, and to wake up not knowing who one is: this all stems from anxiety about finishing the book, about time 'growing short', etc., and the perpetual strain of invention.
Jack Kerouac
#65. I've always said that my ideal reader would be someone who after finishing one of my novels would throw it out the window, presumably from an upper floor of an apartment building in New York, and by the time it had landed would be taking the elevator down to retrieve it.
Harry Mathews
#66. One always has to spoil a picture a little bit, in order to finish it.
Eugene Delacroix
#67. Sometimes, I'm brave.
Sometimes, I'm just stubbron.
Nigia Stephens
#68. At first it was difficult for me to draw. My right hand doesn't work anymore so I had to train myself to use my left hand. But I persevered. The first one I ended up finishing was the duck.
Edwyn Collins
#69. I was never confident about finishing a book, but friends encouraged me. When I finished my first book, it was accepted by a publisher right away and became an instant bestseller. One male critic called it the most shocking book he ever read.
Jackie Collins
#70. The Bush boom is alive and well. It's finishing up its sixth splendid year with many more years to come.
Lawrence Kudlow
#71. Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it.
Don Roff
#72. But as much as life is sometimes about knowing what you want and going after it and finishing, maybe other times it's about slowing down and shutting up and waiting. There's not always a clear beginning and obvious end. Sometimes we're in the middle . . . and it's okay to camp out there for a while.
Melissa Tagg
#73. Surely it is time for Jews, worried over the huge growth of Arabs in Israel, to consider finishing the exchange of populations that began 35 years ago.
Meir Kahane
#74. I love that feeling of just finishing a workout and knowing I'm taking care of my body. It is such a good feeling.
Jenna Ushkowitz
#75. It had occurred to her that the ultimate expression of Tom Wolfe's 'saturation reporting' was possibly at hand: the copycat murder of the journalist, with the murderer finishing the piece and filing it, complete with photographs and videos.
David Cronenberg
#76. To me, my grandfather's urgency to preach the Gospel one more time to a lost and dying world is the definition of 'finishing well,' and it's such a blessing and lesson.
Will Graham
#77. I rise at 6. Strong coffee helps me face the paper edition of 'The New York Times.' It daily challenges my own capacity for faking anything deranged enough to sound true. I work till 2 P.M. unless I am in the throes of finishing something. I rewrite to be reread.
Allan Gurganus
#78. Instead, we did take our eye off the ball. We decided, instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, to go into Iraq. And today, unfortunately, if you look at the situation on the ground, it is a mess.
Chris Van Hollen
#79. Winning isn't about finishing in first place. It isn't about beating the others. It is about overcoming yourself. Overcoming your body, your limitations, and your fears. Winning means surpassing yourself and turning your dreams into reality.
Kilian Jornet
#80. When I went to college, I did clothing and textiles. It really wasn't until I moved to New York, my second night in, I did stand-up. I took a wild left turn, and instead of going back and finishing school at FIT, I started doing stand-up and acting.
Melissa McCarthy
#81. Up until doing this movie, I hadn't really paid a huge amount of attention to those genres, but after finishing this movie, it really gave me a different sense of appreciation of the way the movies play out.
Chiaki Kuriyama
#82. Between finishing emails, loading the fridge, unloading the dishwasher, getting our son to eat his chicken nuggets and my dog to swallow her pill, it takes approximately 32 days for my husband and I to complete a discussion and 46 to wrap up a fight.
Emma McLaughlin
#83. Finishing a painting demands a heart of steel: everything requires a decision, and I find difficulties where I least expect them ... It is at such moments that one fully realizes one's own weaknesses.
Eugene Delacroix
#84. Sometimes you got to start somewhere. And it's cool, as long as where you start is not where you plan on finishing.
Ice Cube
#85. I write one step at a time, always finishing off the part I'm working on before even thinking about the next part. I need to hear it all together before deciding what goes next. I even mix before moving on ... in other words, I write by recording.
Zach Condon
#86. It didn't feel sporting to shoot at a crazy person, even if that person was a vampire who'd agreed to the job.
Gail Carriger
#87. It was 1988, and I was just finishing a D.Phil at Oxford University on the topic of 'Nietzsche and German Idealism.'
Matthew Stewart
#88. The idea of a vision is revolutionary and ground breaking but achieving it may be back breaking.
Johnnie Dent Jr.
#89. I'm a long way off finishing the LP, but I've got an idea in my head of exactly how I want it to look and sound.
Gold Panda
#90. Mother Goose chuckled to herself. "Jack is nimble, Jack is quick - but Jack can be such a - " She stopped herself from finishing the thought, perhaps remembering she was talking to thirteen-year-olds. "I think I've had enough bubbly for one night. It's time for bed anyway.
Chris Colfer
#91. It is impossible to make time but you can always make a commitment.
Johnnie Dent Jr.
#92. It is not lack of ability, but lack of motivation, lack of focus, and lack of self-confidence that prevents most aspiring authors from finishing what they started.
Gudjon Bergmann
#93. I'd probably say my biggest yo-yo was when I was finishing up my senior year of college. I lost about 100 pounds and within a year gained it all back.
Al Roker
#94. Not finishing is incrediable... it's open end!?
Deyth Banger
#95. If you're going to start something-if it's worth starting-then it's worth finishing. That's what I live by.
Marshall Faulk
#96. Yes, it has made me happier. Finishing them has made me happier. Before I wrote the Potter books, I'd never finished a novel. I came close to finishing two.
J.K. Rowling
#97. When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.
Marc Chagall
#98. The strength and clarity of the picture you envision at the start will tell you when you are done. You are finished when you have said what you wish to say, when nothing added can make it better.
Richard Schmid
#99. Put off finish as it takes a lifetime - wait until later to try to finish things - make a lot of starts.
Charles Webster Hawthorne
#100. No," Roland said, "but it's a fair tale. Tell it to the end, please." Eddie did, finishing with the required They lived happily ever after, and the gunslinger nodded. "No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves, don't we?" "Yeah," Jake said.
Stephen King
