Whitfield Diffie Quotes

If I could go upstairs and write every day, I would be happy. I don't need recreation.

You cannot be creative with people around you.

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

Just keep thinking about the good side of ADD - the creativity and the originality it can stimulate.

Twice a year, I take myself off to a self-imposed 'writer's retreat', staying at a small inn or on a friend's farm, where I am all alone and do nothing other than write.

My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.

When I'm working, I always listen to music to zone everyone else out.

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 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.

It's hard to spend years at a time working in total solitude with no reality-check.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

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 used to tape over the top corner of my computer screen so I couldn't see what time it was. I like the idea that I'm just with the words and not knowing what's going on with the world, when it's lunch or dinner.

I've found I get big things done when I'm on airplanes or in hotel rooms. It's a total needle-mover to book a fantastic room in a place you adore and then put the 'do not disturb' on the phone and door for a week.

Airplanes are a good place to concentrate because you get no emails, no phone calls.

I lock myself up in the apartment when I am writing a script. There's no phone, no Wi-Fi, no distractions whatsoever.

We lived in Atlanta for a couple of years, and had a lot of fun, but my best work happens when I isolate myself. It's all about turning inward.

I need noise and interruptions and irritation: irritation and discomfort are a great starter. The loneliness of doing it any other way would kill me.

Animation requires a great deal of concentration, and I preferred to work alone because then I'm not deterred by somebody asking me if I want coffee, or the phone ringing or something.

People put on their earphones, they lay out their phones, they put - open up their computers, and they convince themselves that they're most productive when they're focused on their e-mail, when, really, they're ignoring the cafeteria, the watercooler, the meetings with colleagues, the times when really the creativity, collaboration happens.

Just lock myself in a room, stop answering emails, stop answering the phone and I come out with something.

My house in Connecticut is very quiet, and when I'm trying to concentrate, I don't even allow the cat inside my second-floor study.

Concentrate on your job and you will forget your other troubles.

I'm a long distance runner, and I get my best ideas when I'm out running. It also helps that I can't write it down immediately - if you hold onto an idea, other things will stick on it.

Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.