Cassandra Clare Quotes

I write in cafes, never at home. I cannot focus at home, am forever getting off my chair to do other things. In a cafe, I have to sit still, or I'll look a bit unhinged.

I have nothing like a writing routine. I sometimes have trouble buckling down to write at home.

If I know somebody is coming 'round, it is incredibly difficult for me to work because I'm waiting for this interruption - even the children's comings and goings are interruptions. Cake-making is a good way of coming out of that space.

I have a gorgeous office at home but tend not to write there because there are so many distractions.

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant.

I always interrupt work with other work, either in a small way or big way, so that's normal.

I can write in my living room with my wife and kid around.

No one would choose to be jerked randomly off task again and again until you have half a dozen things you're trying to get done, all at the same time.

The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.

When you're too relaxed it's not good to create.

Some writers like to work in other places like coffee shops, but I can't - I'd end up people-watching. And if I were at a bookstore, I'd be reading. Sometimes I have some music on, but usually I like it quiet.

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 such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops.

Three hours of focused time on the projects that will really add value and uplift your career are so much better than 10 hours where you are constantly being interrupted and taken off your focus.

I've always got a novel under way, but if I try to work on it every day, exclusively, I falter. So I always keep more than one thing going.

I like my surroundings to be pretty spare and severe. It helps me to concentrate on my work. All I ever do here is go from my studio to my bedroom. Everything else is extraneous. I never entertain, because to me, New York is about meeting people in public spaces, absorbing a little bit of their energy.

I have an office in my house and one about five minutes from my house. I worked solely out of my house for many years, but find, with children, that I have to be in a different ZIP code to think.

I've been in a recording studio enough times to know that it is not the best place to multitask. Doing a couple of takes of a song and running out to check your email to talk to someone about video production really is not good.

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.

If you try to multitask in the classic sense of doing two things at once, what you end up doing is quasi-tasking. It's like being with children. You have to give it your full attention for however much time you have, and then you have to give something else your full attention.

I'm usually working on several things at once. If I get bored with one, I can go on to another. That way, I never get stuck.

I have found that if I spend the first hour of my day at home, I get more done, and less people steal my time.

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

I can't let distractions get in the way.

I never listen to music when I write. It's too much of a distraction.