Mason Currey Quotes

Inspiration is for amateurs," Close says. "The rest of us just show up and get to work.

My life has been regulated by insomnia," Bourgeois told an interviewer in 1993.

Descartes believed that idleness was essential to good mental work,

The Russian-born novelist's writing habits were famously peculiar. Beginning in 1950, he composed first drafts in pencil on ruled index cards, which he stored in long file boxes. Since Nabokov claimed, he pictured an entire novel in complete form before he began writing it, this method allowed him to compose passages out of sequence, in whatever order he pleased...

Auden believed that a life of such military precision was essential to his creativity, a way of taming the muse to his own schedule. "A modern stoic," he observed, "knows that the surest way to discipline passion is to discipline time: decide what you want or ought to do during the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble.

My experience has been that most really serious creative people I know have very, very routine and not particularly glamorous work habits," Adams said

A solid routine fosters a well-worn groove for one's mental energies and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.

I know a person who will poke the fire, set chairs straight, pick dust specks from the floor, arrange his table, snatch up a newspaper, take down any book which catches his eye, trim his nails, waste the morning anyhow, in short, and all without premeditation - simply because the only thing he ought to attend to is the preparation of a noonday lesson in formal logic which he detests. - William James

It's cleansing. If I hadn't been at work all the time, I would have been a lunatic.

Recollect that only when habits of order are formed can we advance to really interesting fields of action - and consequently accumulate grain on grain of willful choice like a very miser - never forgetting how one link dropped undone and indefinite number. - William James

when there doesn't seem to be enough time for all you hope to accomplish, must you give things up (sleep, income, a clean house), or can you learn to condense activities, to do more in less time, to "work smarter, not harder,

I shall always be depressed," Beckett concluded, "but what comforts me is the realization that I can now accept this dark side as the commanding side of my personality. In accepting it, I will make it work for me.

to sustain these true moments of insight one has to be highly disciplined, lead a disciplined life,

Franklin thought that if he could maintain his devotion to one virtue for an entire week, it would become a habit; then he could move on to the next virtue, successively making fewer and fewer offenses (indicated on the calendar by a black mark) until he had completely reformed himself and would thereafter need only occasional bouts of moral maintenance. The

After all," as he wrote years later, "work is still the best way of escaping from life!

One can be very fertile without having to work too much. Three hours in the morning. Three hours in the evening. This is my only rule. - Jean-Paul Sartre

(John Cheever thought that you couldn't even type a business letter without revealing something of your inner self - isn't that the truth?)

A mathematician," he liked to say, "is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.

Bacon always woke at the first light of day and worked for several hours, usually finishing around noon.

We have failed to recognize our great asset: time. A conscientious use of it could make us into something quite amazing. - Friedrich Schiller

Coal mining is hard work. This is a nightmare....There's a tremendous uncertainty that's built into the profession, a sustained level of doubt that supports you in some way. A good doctor isn't in a battle with his work; a good writer is locked in a battle with his work. In most professions there's a beginning, middle, and an end. With writing, it's always beginning again. Temperamentally, we need that newness. There is a lot of repetition in the work. In fact, one skill that every writer needs is the ability to sit still in this deeply uneventful business. - Philip Roth