A Quote by Dan Mangan
I'll force myself to sit down and read a couple of chapters of a great book or I'll force myself to sit and listen to some amazing music or I'll go see a play. I find that watching or experiencing other forms of art gets my brain in action. It makes me feel connected to the creative energies and then that tends to get things going.
Related Quotes
I bailed out on social media for a while, and in short order I found I was able to sit down and read a book again. For the first time in a couple years I could read more than three pages without my brain wandering off into the ether. I drew a direct causal line between all this sort of ratta-tat-tat staccato stimulation that we get from the Internet and my growing inability to sit down and read anything that was longer than 500 words. But for me it came back because those synapses were already latent in my brain.
Well, as anyone who actually writes knows, if you sit down and are prepared, then the ideas come. There's a lot of different ways people explain that, but, you know, I find that if I sit down and I prepare myself, generally things get done.
At some point in the idea process, I simply wear myself down and force myself to choose. But here's the thing: Once I do choose, suddenly all the other possibilities wither and die, and thus I never have a backlog of well-formed ideas waiting for me when my latest book gets finished.
I'm a morning "spinner." That's usually when my brain is thinking too much and I don't necessarily see things positively. So I sit myself down and remember that I'm making it up. I believe we are creating in every moment - making up our reality, so to speak - so when anything gets chaotic or I feel spun out, I remind myself that everything is an interpretation. I can look at it differently and make it work for me in a more positive light.
Anytime that I've felt uninspired, I don't force myself to sit down and write. I only do it when I feel the impulse.
Music should be an elective experience. You should go, "I'm going to sit down and listen to some Beethoven, by God," and then you get to hear it.
I'm going to just sit down for a couple of weeks and do nothing but read who-dunnits and Art books. I feel my work is getting a bit dull and mechanical and this proposed resting should work up some enthusiasm in me.
I understand what's going on, and when I see the fervor, when I see 25,000 people that have seats and not one person during an hour speech will sit down, I say sit down everybody, sit down, and they don't sit down, I mean, that's a great compliment but I do understand the power of the message. There's no question about that.
I love to write just about more than anything, but there are times I have to force myself to sit down and work. I want to play with my daughter or watch a movie with my husband or go outside on the nicest day of the year. But if writing is going to be your job, you have to treat it like a job.
I can sit in my room and write a song that I think might be a hit. I can sort of make myself do that, and then I'll play it to a friend, and they'll say, 'Oh, that's nice.' But when something happens to me, and I sit down and write a song to get rid of my emotions, they'll turn around and say, 'Wow, that's great.'
I have got to do something that makes me focus on one thing, and so I will sit and listen to music, or I will read, or I will go and make ammunition in my workshop. I have just got to keep myself busy.
I don't sit around going, 'What is the matter with me? What do I have to do to get a hit?' And I don't also sit home and listen to my record every day and get drunk and go, 'Wow, this is great.'
When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.
I like to read and listen to music and go for walks and travel and see art. I enjoy cooking and eating and spending time with my family. I don't really find myself searching for things on the television very much.
Music to me was never something that I could listen to while reading a book. Especially when I was studying music, if I was going to listen to music, I was going to put on the headphones or crank the stereo, and by God, I was going to sit there and just listen to music. I wasn't going to talk on the phone and multitask, which I can't do anyway.
I think that music is a very difficult art form in which to be avant-garde. When we sit down to listen to a piece of music, I think our implicit hope is that we're going to find it beautiful, or at least emotional, on some level.
Related Authors
Ani DiFranco Quotes
American
Musician
Bob Dylan Quotes
American
Musician
Brian Eno Quotes
British
Musician
Bruce Springsteen Quotes
American
Musician
David Bowie Quotes
English
Musician
Drake Quotes
Canadian
Musician
Elton John Quotes
English
Musician
George Harrison Quotes
British
Musician
Henry Rollins Quotes
American
Musician
John Lennon Quotes
English
Musician
Madonna Ciccone Quotes
American
Musician
Moby Quotes
American
Musician
Nicki Minaj Quotes
American
Musician
Patti Smith Quotes
American
Musician
Thom Yorke Quotes
English
Musician
Tori Amos Quotes
American
Musician