David Rakoff Quotes

I like to make things. It's been part of my identity since I was a kid.

You can spend a day in a library and feel: 'Great, I've done a day's work.' But it's only research, not writing.

I'm a writer, not a professional runner. It's fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration.

On a good day I write, all day.

I like to just make things... If I have the TV on, I'm not just going to sit there. I want to do something with my hands; I've always got a project. Or I get a small group of people over, and I say, 'Let's make these things today.'

Creative writing and shooting are muscles that atrophy. But when you work them, you become a self-generator who can branch out.

When I'm on a good go, I can do 12, 13 hours of writing.

When I try to concentrate, I really enjoy writing.

Writing is a sedentary gig unless one has a treadmill desk. But I have long believed writing and working out are complementary disciplines.

After I've knitted for a while, I feel like I just woke up from a nap. And what's awesome is that then you have a product! You have something you made with your hands!

If I write a page a day, I feel very good about it.

I think exercise is critical to my writing and an essential way to recharge.

What I love about research is when I'm having a bad day and I can't write, I'll just research some more, I'll learn some more and I'll have better command of the world of the film.

I'm not trying to take over the world, but I find it really rewarding to write, and I thrive on learning.

I enjoy making and creating things.

Genius gives birth, talent delivers.

Sometimes I find it too hot to run, and sometimes too cold. Or too cloudy. But I still go running. I know that if I didn't go running, I wouldn't go the next day either. It's not in human nature to take unnecessary burdens upon oneself, so one's body soon becomes disaccustomed. It mustn't do that. It's the same with writing. I write every day so that my mind doesn't become disaccustomed.

Moving around is good for creativity: the next line of dialogue that you desperately need may well be waiting in the back of the refrigerator or half a mile along your favorite walk.

The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them. A young writer must cross many psychological barriers to acquire confidence in his capacity to produce good work-especially his first full-length book-and he cannot do this by staring at a piece of blank paper, searching for the perfect sentence.

I think walking is very useful, like sleeping and dreaming, as something that's important to my ability to write.

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

If I'm really working on something, writing or painting or really concentrating, I don't even think about brushing my hair.

Most of what I know about writing I've learned through running every day.

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.

Staying healthy through movement and eating well gives you tons of energy and helps mold the skills that allow you to achieve goals from playing soccer to doing a tough homework assignment to writing a song.