Robert Wyatt Quotes

It is amazing how many thoughts can race through your head in a minute.

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

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

I like the cerebral process.

I have this belief that if you have an idea, and you have to write it down to remember it, then it can't be a great idea.

I often spend the majority of my time thinking and writing down notes.

How does anybody ever think of anything?

I always write a thing first and think about it afterward, which is not a bad procedure because the easiest way to have consequential thoughts is to start putting them down.

When the poet Paul Valery once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him with mild but genuine surprise. "Oh, that's not necessary," he replied . "It's so seldom I have one.

Writing doesn't mean necessarily putting words on a sheet of paper. You can write a chapter while walking or eating.

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

My memory is certainly in my hands. I can remember things only if I have a pencil and I can write with it and I can play with it. ... I think your hand concentrates for you. I don't know why it should be so.

Writing is one way to go about thinking, and the practice and habit of writing not only drain the mind but supply it, too.

They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you are not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies…the medium doesn't matter, so long as it inspires you. When you're stumped, go to your notes like a wizard to his spellbook. Mash those thoughts together. Extend them in every direction until they meet.

I think best with a pencil in my hand.

The point of a notebook is to jumpstart the mind.

Write . . . write . . . pencil . . . paper.

Our writing equipment takes part in forming our thoughts.

My inspiration comes from everywhere, just walking down the street and I never know where it's going to come from, so I keep a notebook with me at all times and the only criteria for anything making it into that notebook is if it stops me in my tracks for even an instant, if it catches my eye or my ear and I just write it down.

When you have that first flash of what you think is going to be a great idea-from the mouth, from the hands-that's an amazing feeling. I don't think anything's quite as good as that.

What I think is important about essayists, about the essay as opposed to a lot of personal writing is that the material has to be presented in a processed way. I'm just not interested in writing, "Hey, this is what happened to me today." You get to a place that has very little to do with your personal experience and talks about some larger idea or something in the culture. I don't think you can get to that unless you have had a lot of time to gestate and maybe if I was taking a lot of notes while stuff was going on, I wouldn't be able to get to that place as easily.

Art goes on in your head. If you said something interesting, that might be a title for a work of art and I'd write it down.

You find there's no magic trick, sometimes in the shower, sometimes you're just lying in bed calm, sometimes you're just enjoying life and just have a notepad, it's never far away. Always have a notepad on you, because you never know what's going to happen, take a moment and write it down the minute that comes in your head. Even if you can't deal with it until later, I've had that experience where I was in a wedding party and I'm on stage, I'm like, "I hope I don't forget this, something just occurred to me."

Rain on my head, call that brainstorming.

My pen and paper causes a chain reaction, to get your brain relaxing.