A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.—Rita Mae Brown
Call me a braggart, call me arrogant. People at ABC (and elsewhere) have called me worse. But when you need the job done on deadline, you’ll call me.—Sam Donaldson
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.—Douglas Adams
The natural urge when running a distance is to push harder and finish sooner—to race against time. Every second behind a deadline is a little defeat.—Joe Henderson (the runner, not the tenor player)
There was one famous jazz composer whose bulk of great works wouldn’t have been written at all without the certain, in his case positive, and motivating stress: Duke Ellington.
He worked best under the pressure of a deadline. When he wrote the music for “Paris Blues” – which is among his finest works – he wrote over night what they recorded for the next day’s scenes.