Patti Smith Quotes

I think we've all been in the middle of doing something we cared about, when someone coming in the room and saying 'hello' was annoying. I personally can understand that, as someone who tries to create.

I'm a believer that you shouldn't really talk about the drawing until you're done with the drawing.

He loved the scratching of pencil against paper when he was focused: it meant something was happening.

When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. I think it's a wonderful way to spend one's life.

Sometimes I go outside after a long stretch of writing and I'm surprised it's not raining. Or that it's daylight. Or that it's not the middle of winter. I don't know if that level of immersion is normal, but it's now I do things. I like it. It works well for me.

Part of my function as a writer is to dream awake. And that usually happens. If I sit down to write in the morning, in the beginning of that writing session and the ending of that session, I'm aware that I'm writing. I'm aware of my surroundings. It's like shallow sleep on both ends, when you go to bed and when you wake up. But in the middle, the world is gone and I'm able to see better.

If you think of a school drawing while you work, your drawing will look like one.

When I write, I wear earplugs. I don't want to be self-conscious. I don't want to be thinking about the fact that I'm thinking about it. I just want to be in it. It's one element of hypnosis.

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

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.

When I try to concentrate, I really enjoy writing.

When I work on stories, I tend to lose sight of everything else. I forget to pay bills or to shave. I don't change my clothes as often as I should.

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

When you're concentrating hard, hours can fly by, and it's just you and a math problem.

The space where writing happens is a unique space that's hard to define, and when you're kicked out of it because you're travelling or distracted, it seems so elusive and hard to defend because you yourself doubt whether it existed.

I think writers, by nature, are more observers instead of participators. I am no where near as much of that as Bob Dylan. But when your antenna is up you are pretty fixated and there is not much room in your life for anything else.

Writing is my passion. It is a way to experience the ecstatic. The root understanding of the word ecstasy—“to stand outside”—comes to me in those moments when I am immersed so deeply in the act of thinking and writing that everything else, even flesh, falls away.

[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.

I don't generally listen to music while working, but sometimes music can help me get past minor writer's block.

I listen to music constantly while writing.

I can't write a line without music - it provides just the right amount of distraction to keep me focused. Clearly, I still miss the noisy roommates.

It's all discipline and schedule for me. I mean, it's very easy to get distracted by the real world and things that intrude constantly, and it takes dedication to live totally in your head and be tuned out.

A lot of painters listen to music, I think, while they paint. But I hate to do that. It's a horror. I can't really listen to the music. I'm not really concentrating on it, and I'm not really concentrating on the painting.

At night I can write for hours.

When I play, I become entirely absorbed in the game. It may be a form of concentration.