Clive Thompson Quotes

It became a habit of mine never to leave the house without a pencil in my pocket.

I always have a good pen with me.

I always have pen and paper with me.

Always carry a notebook. And I mean always.

Always write your ideas down however silly or trivial they might seem. Keep a notebook with you at all times.

I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.

I learn my lines while on the golf course. I try to do two or three things at once. I have ideas for books all the time, I have ideas for paintings all the time, and I write them all down. I take my sketchpad and my iPad, which I design on, and I do sit down and do specific tasks at specific times.

I carry a notebook and write down things to do, and I write out thoughts and stuff like that.

So if you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready, and that is how I run my life.

If I have an idea, I write it down, although I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I'm too lazy to write.

I don't know how many thoughts we have a second, but it's quite an amazing number, and just to pin down the appropriate sequence of those, all you really need is a pencil and a piece of paper.

I often spend the majority of my time thinking and writing down notes.

Even if you're just making a list of all the things you have to do, putting your pen to paper gets it out of your head. It puts you in this place of release.

In a good house all is quickly ready.

To me, it's simple: if you've got the time, use it to get ready. What else could you possibly have to do that's more important? Yes, maybe you'll learn how to do a few things you'll never wind up actually needing to do, but that's a much better problem to have than needing to do something and having no clue where to start.

Be a collector of good ideas. Keep a journal. If you hear a good idea, capture it, write it down. Don't trust your memory.

I wish I could [keep a journal]. I have a lot of journals with one page half written in. I sometimes will write myself a quick email on my Blackberry when I think of something.

I write pretty fast, probably faster than most people. But I might think about something for six hours, then write it in 20 minutes. So did I write for six hours and 20 minutes, or just 20 minutes? I used to write absolutely every day, except for days when I had to travel or something.

I write at all different times. I write in my bed, I write at the table. I need to get it together. I'm working on a book and working, and just jam it in whenever it makes sense.

Write . . . write . . . pencil . . . paper.

I suppose the more you have to do, the more you learn to organize and concentrate-or else get fragmented into bits. I have learned to use my 'ten minutes'. I once thought it was not worth sitting down for a time as short as that; now I know differently and, if I have ten minutes, I use them, even if they bring only two lines, and it keeps the book alive.

Thinking is the activity I love best, and writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers. I can write up to 18 hours a day. Typing 90 words a minute, I've done better than 50 pages a day. Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up-well, maybe once.

I'm extremely organized. The more things I have to work on and can bounce back and forth between, the more energized I am.

I am a night creature, and I write from midnight till dawn, secluded in my office and surrounded by my collection of dragons (I have 400 of them). I only use Macintosh computers, which I name in dynastic order. Right now I'm using MacDragon 5. Only the devil is able to decipher my handwriting.

Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.