James Merrill Quotes

I'm trying to learn how to write faster.

I can write faster on a typewriter than you can on a computer. I do 120 words a minute, and you can't do that on a computer.

No matter who you are or what you plan to do in life, learn to type!

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.

When I do write, it happens really easily. I'll just kind of sing along to whatever I'm playing, then find a line to build off of, then sit down and write. When I do write, I take care of business!

I type 40 words per minute on a normal computer with my left foot. And with two cups of coffee, I can do 53 words per minute.

When you form a team, why do you try to form a team? Because teamwork builds trust and trust builds speed.

Everybody has a cartoon of themselves. Mine is: I write very fast, and I'm ruthlessly efficient with my time.

If you type adeptly with 10 fingers, you're typing faster than your mind is working.

Whenever you need something from someone else before you can move forward, it's a dependency. We believe dependencies slow people down. We want people to be more independent, because that will keep them moving forward.

I gotta pound the keys for the ideas to flow.

Teamwork builds trust and trust builds speed

I write at high speed because boredom is bad for my health.

I type 90 words per minute on the typewriter; I type 100 words per minute on the word processor. But, of course, I don't keep that up indefinitely - every once in a while I do have to think a few seconds.

Type as quickly as you can and always carry a pencil.

One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.

I'd much prefer to write more quickly.

I am trying to get the hang of this new fangled writing machine, but I am not making a shining success of it. However, this is the first attempt I have ever made & yet I perceive I shall soon & easily acquire a fine facility in its use. ... The machine has several virtues. I believe it will print faster than I can write. One may lean back in his chair & work it. It piles an awful stack of words on one page. It don't muss things or scatter ink blots around. Of course it saves paper.

Thinking is the activity I love best, and writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers. I can write up to 18 hours a day. Typing 90 words a minute, I've done better than 50 pages a day. Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up-well, maybe once.

I write every day for most of the work day, and I try to write 2,500 words per day... If I don't make it a routine and treat it like a job, I'd never get anything done.

Sneaking up on it sometimes helps: I've found I can be very productive for an hour before dinner, because there obviously isn't enough time to really do anything, so I can tell myself I'm just screwing around.

First, do it. Second, do it well. Third, do it well and fast — that means you're a professional.

Nothing can be done well at a speed of forty miles a day. The multitude of mixed, novel impressions rapidly piled on one another make only a dreamy, bewildering, swirling blur, most of which is unrememberable.

You've got to make haste while it's still light of day.

Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page a day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.