“Peter, before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people.” (578)”

“Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity.”

“The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind.”

“‎A farm is a manipulative creature. There is no such thing as finished. Work comes in a stream and has no end. There are only the things that must be done now and things that can be done later. The threat the farm has got on you, the one that keeps you running from can until can't, is this: do it now, or some living thing will wilt or suffer or die. Its blackmail, really.”

“Entrepreneurial quality - is by far the toughest (criterion for a social entrepreneur).. For every one thousand people who are creative and altruistic and energetic, there's probably only one who fits this criterion, or maybe even less than that. By this criterion...we do not mean someone who can get things done. There are millions of people who can get things done. There are very, very few people who will change the pattern in the whole field.”

“There is no goal, nowhere to get to, nothing to achieve.All that you seek, no matter how great or small, is merely entertainment, diversion, or exercise along the way. It is of no consequence. Yet you must do it. That is the secret. You must do your work, you must help others, you must grow your plants, and you must write.You must do all those things, and yet those things will lead you no place that you are not right now.”