A Quote by Geoff Dyer

All sorts of things can keep one awake. But as you get older - this is what the stroke thing really brought home to me - this thing that I never paid attention to: my brain. I've always been conscious that, of course, after a night of getting stoned, my head would feel foggy; if I got drunk the night before I'd be hungover. But that was the extent of my concern about my brain. And then with the stroke thing, it made me realize, "God! That's my main source of income." So it relates actually to your other question about growing old.
I've always felt, it's a gift of God, whatever I have, whatever has made me do what I do for as long as I do it. But I know I can lose that in one second. A stroke. Whatever. One second. Blow the whole thing. So, when you do think about that, you realize how fortunate and how blessed you've been, and that's really how I feel.
I realized, "Oh my gosh! I'm having a stroke!" And the next thing my brain says to me is, Wow! This is so cool! How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?"
Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right. There's Owl. Owl hasn't exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would know the Right Thing to Do when Surrounded by Water. There's Rabbit. He hasn't Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan. There's Kanga. She isn't Clever, Kanga isn't, but she would be so anxious about Roo that she would do a Good Thing to Do without thinking about it. And then there's Eeyore. And Eeyore is so miserable anyhow that he wouldn't mind about this.
The conscious mind can only pay attention to about four things at once. If you've got these nagging voices in your head telling you to remember to pick up the laundry and call so-and-so, they're competing in your brain for neural resources with the stuff you're actually trying to do, like getting your work done.
It's never been about trying to look well-behaved. It's just how I am. I guess it's a weird thing to be 19 and not ever have been drunk, but for me, it just feels normal because I don't really know any other way. I don't know if I'd be comfortable getting wasted and not knowing what I've said. That doesn't mean when I'm older I won't have a glass of wine. I just don't think it's such a strange thing for me not to be wasted all the time.
This process of change since my stroke has been very gradual. It is going on all the time... It is partly a physical transformation. The body itself is undergoing great changes. My problem before was that I was living largely from the head; and then after the stroke I got down into the heart.
If I've got to have a stroke or a heart attack, I'd rather have a heart attack. I don't think that's the only reason I campaign for the Stroke Association, but a stroke would be a terrible thing.
The only thing that I would say to anyone doing late night shows is - it took me a couple years then - but when you leave the studio, it's over. That's what you really have to do. After a long time, I would be like, "Maybe I shouldn't have said this," or "Maybe I shouldn't have shown this." But eventually, I got to, "Ah, f - k it." That's what it was that night, tomorrow's the next night.
A writer's job is not complete without attention to precision. What you're trying to be precise about is your relationship to the observed thing. And "observed thing" could include remembered thing, fantasized thing, fictionalized thing, recorded thing, trans-altered thing. It's the model that's in front of you or in your brain or your memory or whatever. So you're trying to be precise about what it is you're seeing because it's very unlikely that you're going to be able to depict it as it is.
People always say, 'Is it tough getting up at four in the morning?' I'm not terrible with that, but the weird thing for me is that I start to feel like a 3-year-old in need of a nap at about 7:30 at night; and, at 9:30, my head is teetering like that.
As I get older I find myself thinking about stories more and more before I work so that by the time I eventually sit down to write them, I know more or less how it's going to look, start or feel. Once I do actually set pencil to paper, though, everything changes and I end up erasing, redrawing and rewriting more than I keep. Once a picture is on the page I think of about ten things that never would have occurred to me otherwise. Then when I think of the strip at other odd times during the day, it's a completely different thing than it was before I started.
I never want to feel complacent, and I had started to, a little bit. I had started to feel like "I have this thing I can do, it's worked a few times," but not only does that get boring, but you feel stagnant and unproductive. So I was feeling a lack of creativity and motivation, so I started making a more conscious choice to grow personally. It wasn't even an image-conscious thing, like, "I don't want people to think this way about me." It was really just a way to keep myself energized and feel excited about this thing I love doing. Like I went to couples therapy or something.
When the police arrived and found no lion, no broken wall, and no convicts, and the Head behaving like a lunatic, there was an inquiry into the whole thing. And in the inquiry all sorts of things about Experiment House came out, and about ten people got expelled. After that, the Head's friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn't much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after.
Glad it was you and not me," Shane said, and offered Myrin a hand up. "Any brain damage?" "Since the bullet actually passed through his brain, then yes, idiot boy, there's certainly brain damage," Oliver said. "It will pass. His brain's the least fragile thing about him." "You say the nicest things," Myrin said. He was slurring his words, and he threw an arm around Oliver's neck. "Marry me.
People always talk about what they do the night before, but to be totally honest what you do the night before isn't going to make a huge difference in how you look. Maybe eating a giant burger and being bloated would make a difference, but other than that it's the lead-up. For me it's always about trying to consistently maintain a fit and body-conscious eating schedule so three days before I'm not like, Oh my God, I have a bathing suit shoot I have to do.
All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after night And never get the answers right.
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