Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes

I don't like to listen to music while I'm working.

I always listen to a lot of different music when I am working on a project.

I didn't really listen to music when I was doing homework or when I - when I work on a script. I tend to drift to NPR and news.

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

I can't write a line without music - it provides just the right amount of distraction to keep me focused. Clearly, I still miss the noisy roommates.

I do listen to a lot of music, but I don't listen when I'm writing.

I just prefer instrumental. I don't need to hear what other people are singing. And if I need music as a backdrop to work or to think, I need to have that part of the brain clear - I don't need people feeding their fantasies into my vision.

Also, because people like to multitask, in a way if you've got a bit of music on in the background and the lyrical content is making you want to listen to it, then that would probably put you off the texting you wanted to do. I think people like things that just make that right kind of noise, but leave your brain free to do something else.

I literally cannot work without music.

We leave TVs on in our house. I listen to my record player constantly to just hear music. I'm really intrigued by this idea of solitude.

I really just like to sit alone at the piano. I need my me time.

Generally, I can't really do much without music playing - even writing or thinking. Peace and quiet means putting on a song.

Caffeine helps a lot. That and a certain amount of isolation.

I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.

When you sit down and watch something alone, you're going to watch it for what it is.

I work in silence.

I love to go see films, even on my own. I just walk to the nearest cinema. There's nothing better than watching a movie alone; you can just sit there and zone in.

Despite the fact the studio looks out of five windows onto a picture perfect view of sky, hills and wide open spaces, I work with my blinds firmly drawn, daylight filtered through their white canvas, a painterly northern light falling through two big skylights above my table, and nothing visible outside to distract me.

There's something about the air and the sky and the atmosphere in the South of France that must be very conducive to work, to being creative, because I have written several of my books there. I find it so much easier because you're cut off. If you don't want to speak to anybody, basically they don't know where you are. And it's so beautiful.

If I'm really under pressure to get work done, I can adapt to most situations, but I prefer to be at home, in a comfortable chair, with as few distractions as possible.

In business, in the music world, people know that I can be very friendly and warm but that, after a certain moment, the business is closed. I like to be alone: in order to concentrate on my work, the social life does not exist. It has never existed for me, really. I have chosen instead the working life because I prefer that.

When that music comes on, I just block everything around me out.

I think I definitely like the solitude of golf.

I have a Manhattan club chair in dark espresso leather that I always read in. It's a place where I can contemplate other people's thoughts and stir my imagination.

I use music to focus, like an internal motor.