Will Self Quotes

The camera is interested in what you are thinking as opposed to just what you are doing or saying.

Most people don't realize that the mind constantly chatters. And yet, that chatter winds up being the force that drives us much of the day in terms of what we do, what we react to, and how we feel.

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.

Conscious thought is the tidying up at the end.

Independent of what is happening around you in the outside world, humans constantly have internal activity in the brain.

Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories.

External motion we call action; internal motion is human thought.

Expectation works in mysterious ways---and totally unconsciously.

I'm fascinated by the ways in which people express themselves, because their responses are often counter to what they're actually feeling. Like when they're frightened, they tend to freeze. When they're angry, it doesn't always come out as volume. There are wonderful contradictions in the way that people express their emotions.

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

Ever see a little kid walking around talking to himself? I'm the same way.

Scientists attach great importance to the human capacity for spoken language. But we also have a parallel track of nonverbal communication, which may reveal more than our carefully chosen words, and sometimes be at odds with them.

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

Writing is essentially an internal process.

I'm always interested in how people use language to not say what they mean.

I realised quite early that by the time I articulate my thoughts into words, I'm on to another thought. And what comes out wasn't what I thought of exactly. So not talking was a better option.

Our brains are designed to solve some of our most complex problems when we're distracted by routine habits.

A brow furrow is a very important indicator of confusion or concentration, and it can be a negative facial expression.

I'm sure our brains are working unconsciously. When you have a creative thought, it's parts of the brain talking to each other without your awareness.

Your brain forms a story and, if you're lucky, there's a line where the story takes over the brain. You don't even know what you have.

In order to produce the satisfaction of comprehension, there first needs to be the process of comprehension. Furthermore, the overarching idea at hand needs to be something that is actually comprehensible.

Some people make tunes, but it is lines that run like moving messages through my head. Whatever else I am saying and doing often has no bearing on this inner, verbal life.

Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.