Maxine Kumin Quotes

It takes isolation and solitude for me to write.

When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.

I'm a very dull passenger. I don't speak. I don't have sex. No alcohol. I don't do drugs. The thing that I like about flying is that I feel like I can really concentrate. I used to write many things, and many ideas for my movies belong to this moment where I'm not anywhere specifically in terms of time and space and geography. I am suspended, and this suspension fits me very well.

My favourite place to write is at my desk in my house in the mountains of Crete. I produce more there because one big distraction is missing: the Internet.

I like semi-torn-down places where I could get nestled in and get something done without anyone bothering me.

I need complete silence when I write.

I'm a songwriter. I need silence to hear the melodies, so I don't fill the days with a lot of sound.

One constant writing ritual, no matter what I'm writing, is that I cannot write if people are around me. It wigs me out - the idea that someone is reading as I'm writing stuff.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

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.

For a writer, for the solitude to write, you don't need a room of your own, you need a house.

Composing demands a degree of isolation.

I can't write if someone else is in the house, not even the cleaning woman.

Although I've made notes for things and even written synopses sitting in trains or on park benches, for the complete composition of things I need absolute solitude, preferably an empty house.

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.

I'm most happy when I am writing at night, because I need space and time to write.

I could type in a closet and be fine. It's just a matter of cocooning myself. Just me and the story.

What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.

Writing is a very lonely occupation. To write you need to concentrate, to concentrate you need to lock yourself away. No distractions; you want your stream of thought uninterrupted.

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.

When I write, I don't like to be around any humans.

When you're writing, it's a very solitary job. It's you and your word processor and a cup of tea.

If I have a show at night, I like to spend the whole day alone in silence. I know that might be crazy.

When I'm sitting at my drafting table in my studio, I could really be anywhere.

Writing calls on unused muscles and involves solitude and immobility.