Margaret Oliphant Quotes

I just think everyone needs their own private space.

Because I cannot work except in solitude, it is necessary that I live my work and that is impossible except in solitude.

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.

One constant writing ritual, no matter what I'm writing, is that I cannot write if people are around me. It wigs me out - the idea that someone is reading as I'm writing stuff.

I'm most happy when I am writing at night, because I need space and time to write.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

I'm not one of those who can listen to music and write. I need the door closed. Windows shut. Facing the wall. No birds tweeting, views of nature, and so forth.

All my houses are isolated. Many is the time I just stay home alone.

It's odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. It makes it easier to think rather private thoughts.

I keep social with everyone because I want to know what's going on at every level. At the same time, if I'm not alone a certain amount of time per day then I'll go nuts, because I can't write and I can't think. I can't deal with people all the time. I like being alone. I'm a bit of a cat lady in that way.

Animation requires a great deal of concentration, and I preferred to work alone because then I'm not deterred by somebody asking me if I want coffee, or the phone ringing or something.

I don't mind at all being approached when I'm 10 or more feet away from the car. If I'm anywhere away from the car, I'm fine. That's completely expected. But when I'm next to the car or within 10 feet of it, I'm thinking about that or working in that direction. And that's just something I'd rather be able to work on than be interrupted, really, by anybody.

You can write anytime people will leave you alone and not interrupt you.

There should be at least a room or some corner where no one will find you and disturb you or notice you.

I have not a desire but a need for solitude.

I don't like audiences, I prefer my mistakes in private.

I want to be alone ... I just want to be alone.

Getting a room's not always enough. Sometimes you gotta close the door.

I think that occasionally running away and crashing where people can't find you is important.

I love the process of being alone in a room.

I'm not reclusive at all. Just private.

I think there is no way to write about being alone. To write is to tell something to somebody to communicate to others. . . . Solitude is noncommunication, the absence of others, the presence of a self sufficient to itself.

Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.

I think the silence would be good with me, and not interacting with people would be okay. But not being able to move outside of the space would be hard. Not being able to walk around - the stillness of my body, physically - that would be the challenge.

Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge college is as solitary as a dervis in the desert.