Peter Morgan Quotes

You just go straight for the reality of the situation. So when I sit down to write, I find myself judging it as I'm doing it, as opposed to letting it free flow.

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.

You know, as you compose music, you're just off in your own world. You have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.

Anybody who dedicates himself to exploring the human condition, there's always a detached eye that's watching. In any situation, a little part of me is observing it, to see if there are any raw materials to create something else later.

Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

Writing is challenging work because it's so easy to get consumed with how it's going, what's going to happen to it, who's going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

You can play anyone if you're open enough. It's a form of possession. Each time you work on something, you allow yourself to be possessed by creating the environment for it. Then you allow the possession to happen - but not at the expense of your sanity or of your identity.

When you're in the throes of writing, I find, the lessons you've casually imparted to others are not in the forefront of your mind. Which may be good or bad. Probably both.

When I'm writing, I'm just in it and trying to figure out what seems best.

The process of being a writer is much more interior than being a scientist, because science is so reactionary.

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

The roles I think about and can't stop thinking about - on the subway, when I'm riding my bike, when I'm running - are the things I connect to.

I don't make judgments about my own work, and I don't analyze it; I just let it happen. That applies to everything I've done.

Writer's block is your self-critic getting in the way, because creativity will just flow otherwise.

I try to not be self-conscious in my writing process. I think it's important to just be in your subconscious mind - at least when you're starting an idea.

On the whole, I don't want to think too much about why I write what I write. If I know what I'm doing ... I can't do it.

Let's say I've directed that [writing] energy into writing my latest book but suddenly, I really want to write about an onion. I don't say to myself, "No, you have stay on the subject," because I know that the longer I stay on the subject the more boring I get. So, if my mind wants to write about an onion, it might be a deeper way to go into what I'm working on, even though it might seem irrelevant. This is how I've learned to follow my mind.

One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.

When I'm sitting at my computer writing, I really have this fiendish smile on my face. I am not thinking about the past or the future or how it's going to be received. I feel that I'm very lucky that way; I don't carry that particular anxiety around with me. I'm not anxiety-free by any means, but that happens to be one that I've been spared.

The trouble with a lot of people who try to write is they intellectualize about it. That comes after. The intellect is given to us by God to test things once they’re done, not to worry about things ahead of time.

I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.

Sometimes when I write songs, I don't know what they're about, and it just suddenly comes to me.

No one's policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

When I'm writing, it's the weirdest thing: it's not even a conscious process. I'm not even thinking when I write, and then all of a sudden, I'll have a song that makes me feel so much better than I did before.

You cannot just be working in a vast, air-conditioned loft space and think you are going to make a decent painting. Francis Bacon had a special studio built, and he felt completely emasculated in there. I have to be somewhere comfortable.