Norton Juster Quotes

I never talk about work in progress because once I talk about it I don't do it anymore.

The best way for me to procrastinate as a writer is research.

Sometimes I decide I don't want to write because it isn't the thing for me to be doing right then, and I go do something else.

I think the worst and most insidious procrastination for me is research. I will be looking for some bit of fact or figure to include in the novel, and before I know, I've wasted an entire morning delving into that subject matter without a word written.

One of the things I'm really good at is procrastinating.

I'm so good at procrastinating.

I need to have something else going on. I'm able to write a lot if I have an episode of 'Friday Night Lights' going on my computer.

I am a great procrastinator. When the writing is going really well, the laundry piles up.

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.

I couldn't understand why my productivity went down when I had deliberately made more time available to write. Then I realized it was because I wasn't flying as much.

I think of myself as naturally idle. The trouble is, the 'nothing' that I do every day is not really nothing. I potter. I muck about with emails, I make coffee, I fiddle with my computer to make sure that the book I haven't started writing is perfectly synced across all platforms and devices.

I can procrastinate a little bit.

I work better when I'm juggling projects. Nothing worse than watching someone really embrace what they're doing if they love it too much.

I'm usually working on several things at once. If I get bored with one, I can go on to another. That way, I never get stuck.

There's no writer's block; there's only distraction.

When writers say that they need to 'set the mood' or 'get into the zone', those are all ways to procrastinate. Not prerequisites.

Writing is very good for household tasks. Because you'd rather fix a dripping tap or paint an old wall - you'd rather do almost anything than sit and write. I have to reach a point of obsession in order to write, and so I find starting a book incredibly difficult.

Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them.

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.

If I leave my computer, I'm probably not going to get back for hours. If I take a few minutes to answer questions and go web surfing, then guilt kicks in and I get back to work.

It's very easy to fool yourself that you're working, you know, when you're really not working very hard. I mean, I'm very lazy. So for me, I would always have an excuse, you know, to go - quit early, go to a museum, you know. So I do everything I can to make myself remember this is a job. I keep a schedule.

You can always find a distraction if you're looking for one.

I procrastinate all morning. That's when I get my office work done and answer e-mails and see what's on the Internet and do laundry.

I'm a full-time writer, which means I have the entire day to get my work done. But that can also be bad, because that means I have the entire day to get in my way.

I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea.