Steven Millhauser Quotes

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.

For a writer, for the solitude to write, you don't need a room of your own, you need a house.

I think there is only one way to write fiction - alone, in a room, without interruption or any distraction.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.

I never listen to music when I'm writing.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

I don't listen to music when I write. I need silence.

When I write, I don't like to be around any humans.

I've tried everywhere, but my garden shed is the most effective place to write.

I don't need music to write, but sometimes I put music on. I don't need special clothes or even my own equipment.

Here I am, where I ought to be. A writer must have a place where he or she feels this, a place to love and be irritated with.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

Music inspires me and puts me in the right mood, but to actually listen to it when I write - I find it gets in the way.

Anything that keeps you happy and writing is part of my writing ritual: I like music, so I tend to have it playing in the background. But if I'm interested, I can write in an airport waiting areas.

During the holiday season, it's easy to forget that sometimes the best gift of all is simply the gift of time. I can't think of anything a writer would appreciate more than being given time and space to work.

I never listen to music when I write.

The process of writing has always started for me when I put myself in a place where no one distracts me.

For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

Some writers like to work in other places like coffee shops, but I can't - I'd end up people-watching. And if I were at a bookstore, I'd be reading. Sometimes I have some music on, but usually I like it quiet.

I need an office and a place I can sit down to get away from television and just write.

Successful writers say you should never work from a desk with a view, and the view I have from this one is a huge distraction. There's a garden bursting with fresh vegetation, and just beyond the high wall at the end of it, I can see the sign of the local pub across the road. Distractions, eh? I'm so easily led.

I enjoy bluegrass, folk, gospel, and classical. I don't listen to music when I write. I sometimes listen to music just before I sit down to write.

I rarely listen to music while writing. If I don't like it, it bothers me, and if I like it, it absorbs me so much I can't write.