Chris Abani Quotes

I don't think you can read poetry while you're watching television very well.

I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.

I listen to music constantly while writing.

I find that I can't work and listen to radio - either I find I don't like it and it distracts me, or I do like it and I want to listen to it.

Most people just half-watch TV. They watch TV while they are doing many other things in the environment of their home. So, what they are doing goes through their ears as much as through their eyes. In television, the narrative and characters are in the foreground of everything, because you are watching TV as you do other stuff.

I need to have something else going on. I'm able to write a lot if I have an episode of 'Friday Night Lights' going on my computer.

I'm astounded by people who can listen to music when they write. I can only assume that they have multi-track brains, while mine is decidedly single.

While you're writing, you can't concentrate nearly as well on what the speaker is saying.

When I was younger, I was able to write with music playing in the background, but these days, I can't. I find it distracting. Even when the music is just instrumental or has lyrics in a language I don't understand, the clash between the voices in my head and the song can be very disorienting.

Also, because people like to multitask, in a way if you've got a bit of music on in the background and the lyrical content is making you want to listen to it, then that would probably put you off the texting you wanted to do. I think people like things that just make that right kind of noise, but leave your brain free to do something else.

I write in a noisy, distracting world so the books can be read there.

Normally when I read, I don't like music playing.

Look at this generation, with all of its electronic devices and multitasking. I will confidently predict less success than Warren, who just focused on reading.

I used to listen to 'Woman's Hour' every morning, but I've discovered that I can't have words on when I'm working.

I have a bad habit of reading more than one book simultaneously!

You wouldn't read 'Anna Karenina' and try to work on the computer at the same time, would you?

It's insane to be a writer and not be a reader. When I'm writing I'm more likely to be reading four or five books at once, just in bits and pieces rather than subjecting myself to a really brilliant book and thinking, "Well what's the point of me writing anything?" I'm more likely to read a book through when I take a break from writing.

Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it.

To write you had to read so I backed into reading.

People are watching TV, they're watching some clips on their iPhone. I mean, some folks are sitting there on the iPhone, watching the Colbert Report, and meanwhile there's a huge plasma TV right in front of them that they could be watching it on.

How can you read and talk at the same time?” I asked. “Well, I usually can’t, but neither the book nor the conversation is particularly intellectually challenging.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely.

I'm fully capable of multitasking certain conceptual concerns within the work.

I like that feeling in your brain when you've got seven things that you're holding in one moment-you heard that person cough, you heard that person laugh, you're also saying your line, you're also listening to the person who's talking to you.

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.