Ian Rankin Quotes

I'm one of those people who is actually inspired by a deadline. I might not sleep for many days on end, it may not be good for my health, but it definitely helps.

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.

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

You can't get anything done hanging out all day long.

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

We go to the office every day when we're writing - or supposed to be writing. It's not always productive, and there's a lot of procrastinating, just staring at the wall, like any other writing. But we just make ourselves go to the office every day for more or less the whole day.

I'm not a particularly disciplined person in terms of my work habits.

I go up to my office and sit down in front of my computer and turn on the internet and then I don't work - that's the end of work for the day.

If what needs to get done is going to get done, then I can't screw around with the luxury of writing rituals or waiting for pristine writing conditions to magically materialize.

My biggest regret could be summed up in one word, and that's procrastination.

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.

Am I a slacker? I can be a slacker. When I was in college, most people got summer jobs for college or did research during college. I went home and watched TV the whole day for three months; it was really awesome.

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'm a bit of a workaholic. When I feel like I'm not doing something, it drives me insane.

The hard part of writing at all is sitting your ass down in a chair and writing it. There's always something better to do, like I've got an interview, sharpening the pencils, trimming the roses. There's always something better to do. Going to a writer's club?

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

I knew I could control one thing, and that is my time and my hours and my effort and my efficiency.

I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.

I can be a lazy slob.

I'm a terrible procrastinator.

I'm so good at procrastinating.

Once you get into the habit of work, you can be more productive in the things you want to do.

My block was due to two overlapping factors: laziness and lack of discipline.

I'm barely prolific and incredibly lazy.