Leonardo, Michelangelo, how did they do so much? I have thought about this because people are always asking me how I can be so productive. It is almost impossible to gauge how much can be done by someone working hard at something they love. Most people are either working at something they hate, or they have little time to work at what they love; or even more prevalent, they are working halfheartedly all day long at something they are only halfhearted about. It is good, or worthy, or what they currently know, but it is not their passion, if they even know dimly what that passion might be. But think of it: think of working full out, flat out, all the time at what you love. No one can imagine what can be done by such work and such people.
- notes from a Q&A session with Anthony Burgess (writer), 1978.