Alexandra Kleeman Quotes

Every single time I start to do a picture, without fail, I feel as if I don't know what I'm doing.

Twice a year, I take myself off to a self-imposed 'writer's retreat', staying at a small inn or on a friend's farm, where I am all alone and do nothing other than write.

It's weird, because I don't feel prolific. I don't write anything for months at a time.

Sometimes I panic and think I can't really write.

You've probably never thought about it before unless you happen to write for a living, but professional writers are doomed to spend most of their waking hours sitting by themselves at a desk, staring at a blank computer screen and waiting for lightning to strike.

Some days I can't get an idea, and I think, 'Man, I'm just washed up,' but it's just a mood.

Growing up, I didn't know any writers and felt somewhat isolated.

If one is the kind of creature I am and wants to do the kind of writing I want to do, an undisturbed bourgeois existence with no distractions seems in order. A single meeting outside the family upsets one's whole inner web, makes one start off on two-days' thinking and weighing, destroys a delicate balance etc. etc. ... I now have enough friends to last me a lifetime and that is enough. I am going to close the doors and hibernate at least for a couple of years. I am frightfully depressed about my work. It seems to me perfectly mediocre.

I need noise and interruptions and irritation: irritation and discomfort are a great starter. The loneliness of doing it any other way would kill me.

Just lock myself in a room, stop answering emails, stop answering the phone and I come out with something.

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 don't generally listen to music while working, but sometimes music can help me get past minor writer's block.

I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: 'Is it going to happen this time?' You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

Descriptions of my work depress me. They make me feel pinned down.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

I cannot summon up inspiration; I myself am summoned.

Because some of my at-home life was rough and lonely, I often looked to escape into my imagination. Science fiction provided a deep well to pull from and was something easily accessible to me.

Isolation is a self-defeating dream.

I feel a kinship with anyone who feels that their road, their life or who they really are is not good enough. I really relate to that.

I watch people who are not driven by creativity any more, and I think how dull it must be to produce the same kind of thing. If you don't feel you're reaching something new, then don't do it.

I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.

I go into my workroom seven mornings a week. There will only be one or two mornings a week where it seems to be going well, but to earn those days you have to go through slow, slodgy days where your mind feels like porridge.

Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.

I don't feel prolific. I feel like I'm plodding along. Each day you sit down, and you hope that you get your work done.