Lin-Manuel Miranda 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.

The actual work of recording a record or making a film just requires that you consciously block the time out to do that and nothing else. That's what I do.

I always tell myself, 'When I'm working on my record, I won't cut my hair.' I get so focused on the music that I'm not really going to the hair shop and getting cut up. I just have one thing to focus on.

I work very closely with my publisher and just give them tons and tons of music, and then they link that with different songwriters and stuff. I'm basically a workaholic. So, I figured I might as well just start working outside.

Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.

There's nothing romantic about my work... I don't believe in inspiration. I believe that you get to your desk, you stay there, you work, you think of nothing else. You write and you write, and in the end, you write something good.

I'm just like anybody else: I have stuff to do in the day, whether that's writing a song or recording a song. I try to treat everything I do as just work.

Sometimes I go in and try to write beats, but I just trash 'em, and then the next time I go in, I'll make like six beats - six legit, nice beats. I'm really particular with how it needs to sound.

I'll stay in the studio for 12 hours at a time, just producing music and making records. It doesn't feel like 'Oh man I've got a job to do.' It's more like 'Oh man I didn't even realize I've been there this long.'

I remember so well my father's complete concentration when he went to the studio. Everything he did, every movement he made, he did with complete concentration. Then, after he had finished work, he would go to the beach or whatever, and then he would enjoy play and forget about his work.

I'm never not in the studio creating; it's like my second home.

Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.

You can imagine several scenes from Star Wars? The way they looked? For me, that's how music is. Sometimes I'll be developing riffs for songs, just while I'm sitting around and not playing.

Writers are often alone when they work. Hours pass in silence as one long moment; light fades as day turns back to face the coming night.

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

I start a picture and I finish it.

You write a hit the same way you write a flop.

Music is pretty much all I do.

I try to stay focused on my creativity.

For me, there is no day or night for music. I often work through the night - without phone calls disturbing me.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

I'm a songwriter. I need silence to hear the melodies, so I don't fill the days with a lot of sound.

I've already got notebooks full of ideas for new music, so I'm gonna kind of nurture that just like I do all of my ideas and perfect it until it's ready and then I'll just let it go.

I'm more and more fascinated in my own work. I work from 10 A.M. until about 9 P.M., but it's not an obsession, it's a pleasure. There's never enough time.

The most difficult thing about painting is the self-discipline. When I finish a job, I give myself a few days, but then I have to discipline myself quite fiercely if I want to do some painting that's worthwhile. Otherwise, you're just doodling. It's much easier when you're just told what you have to do.