Alain de Botton Quotes

I don't think anybody can create in a space where they don't feel comfortable.

I'll stop when I run out of ideas.

I write about two hours a day, and I write in fits and spurts - 45 minutes here, a half-hour there - and when I get stuck, which happens often, I take the dogs for a walk. But during the time when I'm not actually writing, I'm thinking.

I write anywhere - when I have an idea, it's hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn't be disturbed; it really filled my day.

When I usually go to my studio to work, I start with something that is going to take two minutes just to put some idea down and the next thing I know, ten hours have gone by and my family is screaming at me because they want me to come up to have dinner with them.

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?'

I really believe that cultivating creativity, as a general principle, is about managing your energy.

I have an office at my house, so when I go home I am always pulling inspiration and putting ideas together.

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

Some writers say they cannot write in front of a window; many say they cannot function without almost perfect quiet. A writer with only two hours a day can write in the back of an open truck on the Interstate.

Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute. Or you might not write the paragraph at all.

A writer's brain is like a magician's hat. If you're going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first.

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.

The imagination is how things get done. You have to cultivate creativity.

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

I can't really say - if I've run out of ideas until I've had my next set of ideas.

He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important.

I haven't run out of ideas yet. Usually while I'm working on a book, I'm doing research for the next one!

Every idea occurs while you are working. If you are sitting around waiting for inspiration, you could sit there forever.

Sometimes you run out of ideas, just like if you are a writer or whatever. Then you just have to wait around for something to inspire you or look for something to inspire you.

Writers are always anxious, always on the run--from the telephone, from responsibilities, from the distractions of the world.

I think that 60 percent of inspiration is organization.

It's hard to say how time factors into your work, because sometimes things will come to you very quickly, but it will take years for the ideas to be gestating in your mind.

a writer doesn't only need the time when he's actually writing - he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people.

Waiting for inspiration is like standing at the airport waiting for a train.