Jon Hopkins Quotes

I write slowly and get distracted a lot.

I'm not too easily distracted now I've had practice, but I write with nothing to look at. I used to rent an office that just had a view of a wall!

I'm able to think more clearly when I don't have clutter and stuff around.

I don't need music to write, but sometimes I put music on. I don't need special clothes or even my own equipment.

I can't focus when there's too many things around. Whenever I used to go to the office, I used to always say, 'Tidy up.'

I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence.

You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else.

Acting and recording an album at the same time, that's not my sport. I could write a movie when my attention was paid to that. But I'm good at one thing at a time.

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.

When I work, I wear pants usually because I want to be comfortable. I wear dark colors, especially in winter, because I don't want to concentrate on myself but on what I'm working on. Because I really, really love clothes, I can start to think too much about myself. It's distracting.

I hate belongings. I hate clutter. It really bothers me because I can't think properly. If you've got distractions in front of you, your mind goes nuts.

I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, 'You guys are doing too much stuff.' He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We'd like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things.

I'm not one of those who can listen to music and write. I need the door closed. Windows shut. Facing the wall. No birds tweeting, views of nature, and so forth.

I don't put the focus on things that don't matter.

I sometimes think less is more. If you cut yourself in too many places, it is hard to execute.

I'm a person who, when I set out to write, I write. It's just like when you set out to eat, you eat, or when you set out to sleep, you sleep. I don't do somersaults to write something. I just do it.

I feel like the phone was in my way. So I got rid of the phone to focus.

Focus on one thing and do one thing well.

I would rather do two things really, really, really well than do 16 things and have 14 of them fail.

In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.

I learned the value of focus. I learned it is better to do one product well than two products in a mediocre way.

When I sit down at the typewriter, I write. Someone once asked me if I had a fixed routine before I start, like setting up exercises, sharpening pencils, or having a drink of orange juice. I said, "No, the only thing I do before I start writing is to make sure that I'm close enough to the typewriter to reach the keys."

Now I will have less distraction.

[When working on a book] I have an almost complete detachment from the world I live in, a sort of armor against distraction. I talk to people, move about, appear on the surface much as usual. But later on I have only a confused memory of what has happened during that period.