Erin Morgenstern Quotes

Most of my thinking is done at night.

Insight comes at a moment of transition between work and relaxation.

When I am traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that ideas flow best and most abundantly.

On my walks, that's when the good ideas come. The kind of hard, gritty work is when you're sitting at the computer and it's kind of intense and you're kind of in super control of it - the walks are when you let go. That's when the really big breakthroughs come in, and it's very strange.

Regardless of the magnitude of the decision, our brains make it hard for us to keep the perspective we need to make good choices.

A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind.

Metaphorically speaking, of course, if I put a problem behind my pillow and fall asleep, very often because my brain went to sleep with that idea or the problem alive, very often in the middle of the night I wake up, and I wake up with a solution or with a direction of solution.

You know those little snow globes that you shake up? I always thought my brain was sort of like that. You know, where you just give it a shake and watch what comes out and shake it again. It's like that.

Sanity is madness put to good use.

When you're having a bad day at work, a lot of times it's your head. When you're having good days, a lot of times it's the absence of the mind.

Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time. You could go from love to hate. But you cannot, at the same time - toward the same object, the same person - want to harm and want to do good.

I spend a lot of time upside down. It increases the blood flow to the brain, so it really helps your creativity.

All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.

My mind starts to work creatively past 10 P.M. or 11 P.M. - all of a sudden there's silence and my head starts going.

My brain is fine.

You really don't understand the first thing about writing...for one thing, early in the morning is the worst possible time. the brain is like a wet sponge at that hour. And for another, real writing is a question of staring into space and waiting for the right ideas.

So-called "inspiration" is no more than an extreme example of a process which constantly goes on in the minds of all of us.

I think better when I'm not sober

A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It's the nonworking brains that get blocked, that have dead ends, that are under construction like mine.

My mind is turning into kind of a fine gelatinous ball of pepper

I've got so much in my brain and I want to change the way we think sometimes.

While he lives, he must think; while he thinks, he must dream.

The reason I haven't been writing in this book for so long is partly that I haven't had one decent coherent thought to put down.

Sometimes it is difficult to remember, but other times it is very easy to remember. Sleep deprivation is the killer.

Constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last, so that it can be clinched. When a man's undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once.