Miranda July Quotes

I try to physically and mentally immerse myself in whatever it is I am doing. That is good for me as an artist.

But if you can find that spot - I suppose it's like running - I used to be a swimmer and swim laps, and you just have to be there with what you're doing.

I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

I think we've all been in the middle of doing something we cared about, when someone coming in the room and saying 'hello' was annoying. I personally can understand that, as someone who tries to create.

When I model I pretty much go blank. You can't think too much or it doesn't work.

If I'm really working on something, writing or painting or really concentrating, I don't even think about brushing my hair.

Part of my function as a writer is to dream awake. And that usually happens. If I sit down to write in the morning, in the beginning of that writing session and the ending of that session, I'm aware that I'm writing. I'm aware of my surroundings. It's like shallow sleep on both ends, when you go to bed and when you wake up. But in the middle, the world is gone and I'm able to see better.

Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is, 'Oh, I'm on stage playing a song,' because you're daydreaming about something else, you're on autopilot. You have to fight that.

It's all discipline and schedule for me. I mean, it's very easy to get distracted by the real world and things that intrude constantly, and it takes dedication to live totally in your head and be tuned out.

Attention is the material I work with.

Writing is a very focused form of meditation. Just as good as sitting in a lotus position.

When I play, I become entirely absorbed in the game. It may be a form of concentration.

When really writing I'm not a good friend. Because writing disorganizes the social self, you become atomized. It scrambles you, sometimes to the point that I'm incapable of speech. I feel that if I start speaking, I'll lose the writing, like getting off the treadmill.

For a long time, I would write without music, because I thought it was distracting until I appreciated that it actually unlocks a certain unconscious productivity vault in my mind.

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.

When I'm writing, I write every day. It's lovely when that's happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don't even know what day of the week it is.

Golf is a spiritual game. It's like Zen. You have to let your mind take over.

I was fully immersed in the now as an athlete.

I don't listen to music when I write - I find it distracting.

Composing demands a degree of isolation.

I was reading an article in the 'New York Times;' it talked about being in the zone, and being in the zone you're so focused that time ceases to exist. It's when you think, 'Oh, I've been doing this for five hours and didn't even know it.' It's the difference between hard work and going, '12 o'clock, not moving.'

One of the things I like about performing on the stage is that it is a kind of meditative experience. Time does stand still. You have no concept or feeling of the passing of two or three hours' time. It's all kind of one present moment, which is a kind of a description of meditation.

Some people think they are concentrating when they're merely worrying.

There are days when I'll write for 15 minutes and have to give up and move around, and I'll write another paragraph and give up again. On other days I get intensely - focused on the process, sit down at 8 A.M. and won't get up until 8 P.M.

I thought a lot and I controlled my thoughts in my work - and I controlled my work through my thoughts.