Andrew Dost Quotes

When I'm writing a new play, there's a period where I know I shouldn't be out in public much. I imagine most people who create go through something like this. You willfully loosen some of the inner straps that hold your core together.

I don't like being left to my own thoughts.

Sometimes I think I'm the craziest person on the planet.

I question every move. I'm constantly second-guessing myself.

After playing Saffy in 'Ab Fab', I needed to take time out from acting to see if I really wanted to do it. I had been doing it for a very long time and I was being sent the same sort of scripts again and again.

I can't cut off an ear everyday. Do the Van Gogh here and the Mozart there. Anyway it's exhausting enough always having to check up on what one is really doing!.

Composing demands a degree of isolation.

By the time I hit college, my secret shame was the reason I was an actor was my own words sort of dried up. I stopped writing. I stopped being able to form my own vision. That's actually what my first feature is about - looking back at two different selves.

Anytime you put yourself in a creative box, it's going to stifle you; it's not conducive to the writing or recording process.

Artists today think of everything they do as a work of art. It is important to forget about what you are doing - then a work of art may happen.

A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.

Oddly, when I started to make the record, I wasn't aware I was making a record. I just was sort of disgusted with the whole thing and sequestered myself in the basement and started playing the piano just for something to do.

I just don't think it's good to be around too much creative energy other than your own.

Sometimes when you're an artist, you need to be in your own head; you need to stay in it to be able to get to a good place.

You can't base your life off waking up every morning, like, 'What are people saying about me now?' Then I'd never stay in my creative headspace.

I used to drive myself crazy by thinking, three days later, 'Ugh, why didn't I play it like that? Ugh, now that line makes sense to me.'

You just can't spend any time second-guessing yourself.

Most writers live in self-imposed exile, even when they don't leave their country. They prefer the undiscovered country inside their own heads.

So many writers live their whole lives in rooms. You can be too civilised in the environment you have around you, too oriented towards speaking engagements and literary festivals and dinner parties. That has no interest for me these days. You get to a point where you don't care anymore. At that point, you can start to write.

When we were writing for Panic whether we knew it or not, having that name over the songs we were trying to do made me second guess things and change things. I started to go against my instincts.

When I leave a recording session, there is usually a lot of paranoia or superstition on my part, like I'm afraid to hear what we've done.

The challenge is always as a writer, is this going to work, because it's a very intimate process, and I tend to be very introverted and insular, and when I write, it's in my head.

I just don't analyze what I do, because I'm afraid I won't be able to do it anymore. I'm sort of superstitious. And that's why I've never looked back at any movie I've done.

There isn't a thought in my head I care to be alone with for more than five minutes.

I found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months. The thing to say to such people is: "See how *bad* a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. That would be fun and interesting. I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!" And of course, no one can.