Mary Gaitskill Quotes

I couldn't understand why my productivity went down when I had deliberately made more time available to write. Then I realized it was because I wasn't flying as much.

But I find the best things I do, I do when I'm trying to avoid doing something else I'm supposed to be doing. You know, you're working on something. You get bugged, or you lose your enthusiasm or something. So you turn to something else with an absolute vengeance.

Without deadlines and restrictions I just tend to become preoccupied with other things.

I have no writing habit. I work when I feel like it, and I work when I have to - mostly the latter.

TV's not the problem, and I'm tired of it being posed as this antithesis to creativity and productivity. If TV's getting in your way of writing a book, then you don't want to write a book bad enough.

When writers say that they need to 'set the mood' or 'get into the zone', those are all ways to procrastinate. Not prerequisites.

I just said, 'I need to do something because staying up and watching YouTube and late night TV is not cool,' so I just decided to write a script.

Getting to my typewriter is something I push myself to, but once I am working, I work hard.

Sometimes you can't write a novel for weeks and weeks, but it's good for your self-esteem to work on something else.

I don't really manage my time. I really just wait until I'm inspired to do something. And when I'm inspired to do something, it just happens.

Everything in life turns out to be a distraction from the real thing you want to do. There are a million distractions and when I was a kid I was very disciplined. I knew that the other kids weren't. I was the one able to do the thing, not because I had more talent, maybe less, but because they simply weren't applying themselves.

What scares me the most is that both the poker bot and Dropbox started out as distractions. That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little voice knows best.

Writing is very good for household tasks. Because you'd rather fix a dripping tap or paint an old wall - you'd rather do almost anything than sit and write. I have to reach a point of obsession in order to write, and so I find starting a book incredibly difficult.

I have ideas every day, and if I'm not carrying a pad of paper, I'm typing it into the notes thing on my iPhone, and it's just ridiculous - idle hands are the devil's plaything, and I can't be the devil's plaything. I got to be the devil; I got to be the guy making it all happen.

Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them.

I have nothing like a writing routine. I sometimes have trouble buckling down to write at home.

It's very easy to fool yourself that you're working, you know, when you're really not working very hard. I mean, I'm very lazy. So for me, I would always have an excuse, you know, to go - quit early, go to a museum, you know. So I do everything I can to make myself remember this is a job. I keep a schedule.

If I have one thing on in a week, I find it very difficult to get back to work that week. I need a lot of dreaming time.

I start each book when it's ready and never before.

The key to getting work done on time is to stop wearing a watch.

I'm a full-time writer, which means I have the entire day to get my work done. But that can also be bad, because that means I have the entire day to get in my way.

I'm guessing the stress of having to write for a deadline can be inspiring. Sometimes, pressure is good.

I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way.

Being obsessed by goals is bad for you. You should set goals, even ambitious goals, regularly. But focus on them only to the extent that they give you direction.

One of the things I'm really good at is procrastinating.