“I read once that the true mark of a pro — at anything — is that he understands, loves, and is good at even the drudgery of his profession.”
I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985)
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Paul R. Halmos 9
American mathematician 1916–2006Related quotes
Letter to Major-General John Sullivan (15 December 1779), published in The Writings of George Washington (1890) by Worthington Chauncey Ford, Vol. 8, p. 139
1770s
Context: A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it. I should be happy that my own experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be placed upon them.
A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise
“Man is weak and when he makes strength his profession he is even weaker.”
El hombre es débil y cuando ejerce la profesíon de fuerte es más débil.
Voces (1943)
“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep; Slowly, and then all at once.”
Hazel Grace Lancaster, p. 125
Compare Ernest Hemingway, speaking about the process of going bankrupt: "'Gradually and then suddenly.'"
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)
"Off the Page: Martin Amis" (2003)
Context: I once wrote, in The Information, that an Englishman wouldn't bother to attend a reading even if the author in question was his favorite living writer, and also his long-lost brother — even if the reading was taking place next door. Whereas Americans go out and do things. But Meeting the Author, for me, is Meeting the Reader. Some of the little exchanges that take place over the signing table I find very fortifying: they make up for some of the other stuff you get.