Steve Reich Quotes

It's pleasanter to work in the country, where you can wander out among the trees. But I don't get as much work done. In the city you don't want to leave the room because there's all that chaos going on.

There's something to be said in favor of working in isolation in the real world.

It amazes me how much noise there is on a set while people are trying to focus and do their jobs. But there's some kind of order within that chaos.

It's annoying when you've got a guitar and you're working on music and then you have to go and do the shopping or someone calls your mobile and you get distracted or you have to go out and do something. So it's nice to just concentrate on it one hundred percent and give your all to it.

WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.

If I know somebody is coming 'round, it is incredibly difficult for me to work because I'm waiting for this interruption - even the children's comings and goings are interruptions. Cake-making is a good way of coming out of that space.

I tend to write in coffee shops and restaurants with friends of mine because if I'm at home, I get distracted by the television or the cats or my husband, or... you know - all of those things that make it easy to procrastinate.

Some writers like to work in other places like coffee shops, but I can't - I'd end up people-watching. And if I were at a bookstore, I'd be reading. Sometimes I have some music on, but usually I like it quiet.

Successful writers say you should never work from a desk with a view, and the view I have from this one is a huge distraction. There's a garden bursting with fresh vegetation, and just beyond the high wall at the end of it, I can see the sign of the local pub across the road. Distractions, eh? I'm so easily led.

I have a gorgeous office at home but tend not to write there because there are so many distractions.

I have a study now - I used not to. I also love working in cafes; ignoring noise is good for concentration.

I've never tried writing at a coffeehouse. I just know instinctively it's not for me.

I don't like to listen to music while I'm working.

I have an office in my house and one about five minutes from my house. I worked solely out of my house for many years, but find, with children, that I have to be in a different ZIP code to think.

I've been in a recording studio enough times to know that it is not the best place to multitask. Doing a couple of takes of a song and running out to check your email to talk to someone about video production really is not good.

Despite the fact the studio looks out of five windows onto a picture perfect view of sky, hills and wide open spaces, I work with my blinds firmly drawn, daylight filtered through their white canvas, a painterly northern light falling through two big skylights above my table, and nothing visible outside to distract me.

I sometimes read about authors who say they require a perfectly silent room maintained at precisely 68 degrees, with trash bags taped over the windows and a white-noise machine in the corner to write, and I think, 'Who are these people, and do any of them have kids?'

If I'm really under pressure to get work done, I can adapt to most situations, but I prefer to be at home, in a comfortable chair, with as few distractions as possible.

I never listen to music when I write. It's too much of a distraction.

When you in the studio you don't need everybody calling your phone telling you about what's going on outside the studio. I don't need those distractions.

I write in cafes, never at home. I cannot focus at home, am forever getting off my chair to do other things. In a cafe, I have to sit still, or I'll look a bit unhinged.

If you ask people where they go when they really need to get work done, very few will respond 'the office.' If they do say the office, they'll include a qualifier such as 'super-early in the morning before anyone gets in,' or 'I stay late at night after everyone's left,' or 'I sneak in on the weekend.'

Sometimes I am glad I am not a philosopher - how would I ever complete a single chain of thought when someone is constantly asking me to do something? I don't think Plato would have been able to write his dialogues if he had a wife who kept bugging him to pass the pita bread.

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

I think just getting up and getting to the desk is a big thing. If you can do that, you're in the zone because there're so many distractions that can stop you. From my bedroom to my office isn't really that far, but I have to go via the kitchen and there's so many things that can stop me and interrupt me.