Deborah Eisenberg Quotes

Being tired doesn't necessarily make me grumpy but I do find it incredibly hard to focus or get anything done.

When you are overworked and exhausted, there is a sense of kind of delirium and that's why I think architects do all-nighters and they kind of do those deadlines. For four days I remember doing four nights in one row with no sleep. I mean nobody, unless you are crazy, would do that, but you are totally focused on the project.

I have trouble with any kind of focus or concentrating, or getting anything done at all, really.

I know what it’s like to be distracted. To seek out distractions. To exhaust yourself doing every other little thing rather than face a blank page

I think we really almost burnt ourselves out on one record.

I procrastinate so much and I get distracted by anything.

I write slowly and get distracted a lot.

The worst thing you can think about when you're working is yourself.

It's so funny, because right now I'm very tired and my brains a little dead, I tend to get very focused and serious. So, I'm probably coming off a lot more like Scully right now.

When really writing I'm not a good friend. Because writing disorganizes the social self, you become atomized. It scrambles you, sometimes to the point that I'm incapable of speech. I feel that if I start speaking, I'll lose the writing, like getting off the treadmill.

I have no organisational skills. All my energy goes into worry - worrying takes a lot of energy.

I think we've all been in the middle of doing something we cared about, when someone coming in the room and saying 'hello' was annoying. I personally can understand that, as someone who tries to create.

My ever-present mania meant I was never phased by staying up twenty hours a day or by the different time zones. I was Superman.

I need quiet and solitude to work. Darkness is best. If I am wide awake, I can't write.

I was way too hyperactive to study for long. I would freak out, then crash, then be too tired to read or write. I really should have had less sugar.

If I'm not at my study by 10:00, 10:30, forget it, I can't write a word.

I haven't got the energy to write now.

I procrastinate in spades. In my defence, I also try to have all other distractions solved before I can concentrate on writing. My small theory is that to write for three hours, you need to feel like you have three days. To write for three days, you need to feel like you've got three weeks, and so on.

I'm a believer that you shouldn't really talk about the drawing until you're done with the drawing.

I didn't want to keep forcing myself to grind out book after book.

I'm not a great sleeper. I try and do too many things every day. I think that I get very obsessive about parts and projects. I do let them kind of consume me, and when there's something on the horizon that I want to be involved in, I just kind of hurtle myself towards it.

I can tell you with authority that when I'm exhausted, when I'm running on empty, I'm the worst version of myself.

I used to stay up, stupidly, to work, and I'd just eat to keep my eyes open. I wasn't even hungry - it was just a way to power through.

I don't feel like I'm slowing down.

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