Raymond Chandler Quotes

I stay glued to my piano and my work. I don't look up. I write, I produce, I do the next project, I do my job. I don't look up, and I try to be kind. I try to be kind to people. That's what I do.

When I sit down at the typewriter, I write. Someone once asked me if I had a fixed routine before I start, like setting up exercises, sharpening pencils, or having a drink of orange juice. I said, "No, the only thing I do before I start writing is to make sure that I'm close enough to the typewriter to reach the keys."

Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.

If you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don't want to write, do something else. It's as simple as that.

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.

I write fifteen hours a day, stopping at Oprah-o'clock.

In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.

You have to protect your writing time. You have to protect it to the death.

When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time," and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope.

Writing is hard work, and fun, and requires you to keep your backside in a chair when you would sometimes like to put it elsewhere. So the only wisdom is the advice to keep at it, I guess.

I am a person of high energy. That, and I sit down and I write when I get an idea - I put other things aside.

The real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.

Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write.

I listen to music constantly while writing.

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

I have no philosophy, my favourite thing is sitting in the studio.

When you're writing fiction or poetry... it really comes down to this: indifference to everything except what you're doing... A young writer could do worse than follow the advice given in those lines.

I wish somebody had given me the news that ideas don't just fall on your head like fairy dust. You have to treat that like a job. You have to spend hours each day, where you're just like, 'This is the part of the day when I'm looking for an idea.'

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

When things aren't working out, we have a tendency to say, 'Go do other things,' but you shouldn't do other things. You need to stay at your desk and continue to try to write. You need to insist on it.

When I'm working, I'm not so much disciplined as obsessive. I have this feeling that I need to clear everything away and get this down.

Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.

Being a writer involves writing. You've got to commit to sitting down and writing instead of Xbox or Netflix.