Will Self Quotes

I keep a notebook of ideas, and sometimes ideas form in your head that you just have to write down, or you'll forget them.

It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone.

I gotta take notes when things occur to me.

I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it.

Write down everything you can think of, no matter how stupid it seems. I always write down my thoughts throughout the day. Sometimes good things come out of it, and I'll find an idea to develop into a song, so my best advice is to try and draw inspiration from everyday things.

Over time, I've paid attention, taken notes and forgotten easily half of everything I've gone through.

Every day, I think of designs, but I don't write them down, and I forget. If only I had an office.

I think very fast and visually and I have to write down an idea right away or it will be lost forever.

Moving and motion tends to make things pop up. But things pop up for me, really, at just odd intervals or at random times that aren't really convenient, so I'm a big fan of the voice memo recorder on my phone. That's the only way I can remember things.

When I was younger, I'd be walking down the street and suddenly panic because I had a cool idea and no way of getting it down - I'd have to sing it all the way home. Now I can hum it into my phone.

Note-taking is important to me: a week's worth of reading notes (or "thoughts I had in the shower" notes) is cumulatively more interesting than anything I might be able to come up with on a single given day.

I've had so many little ideas I've written down here and there. Some ideas I've got reams of notes for.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one.

I can barely remember what I wrote yesterday, let alone 10 years ago.

I have notebooks and sketchbooks for ideas. I also have drawers full of envelopes covered in quick outlines, scenes or scraps of dialogue that I don't want to forget. I tend to grab whatever's to hand and just get the thing down before it's lost. It's not what you would call a streamlined system.

My memory is not even what most people's is, much less what it oughta be for a discussion like this.

So I use a tape recorder a lot to record ideas.

I was helped by having a verbatim memory of what happened years ago, even if I can't remember what happened a couple of days ago.

I find a lot of writing happens when you're not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook.

Short term memory is not good.

My memory's bad!

When I write a note, it sticks in my head differently.

People can remember their childhood, but events from four or five years ago are in a never-never land.

I carry a small spiral notebook with me at all times and have been doing this for many years. There's a shoe box in my closet filled with these notebooks, each riddled with notes and impressions, ideas, schemes, and soup recipes.

I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.