Dave Eggers Quotes

Sometimes you have to disconnect to stay connected. Remember the old days when you had eye contact during a conversation? When everyone wasn't looking down at a device in their hands? We've become so focused on that tiny screen that we forget the big picture, the people right in front of us.

I want people to come to me open and vulnerable. When they come to the gallery, they have to leave their watches, their computers, their Blackberrys, iPads, iPhones, because we are so incredibly used to technology, and I wanted to remove that.

I don't let the computer into my bedroom. It would get in the way of life, sleep. And I really can't let that happen.

Almost every time I go to the ocean, I think about throwing my phone right into it. Sometimes, you pull that thing out of your pocket, you look at it, and you're like, 'What was I just going to do with this? Was I going to take a note? Was I going to check my email? Was I going to take a picture?'

I am not a big technology person. I don't go on the Internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it's private, which in this day and age is harder to come by.

I do have a television over there - it was a gift - but I never turn it on. I'd rather read a book.

I'm not really a child of this '120 TV channels, a billion websites' era. I tried to live that for a long time but recently realized I don't get anything from it. I told myself it was luxury, but it was really only annoying. I'd rather just watch the same 50 movies over and over.

I spent all day in front of a digital screen, but I'm about to curl up with a book.

Your computer needn't be the first thing your see in the morning and the last thing you see at night.

I still find it absurdly difficult to concentrate on a novel if there's a phone or computer to hand; I have taken to locking them outside the room like noisy pets.

I can live without endless television programmes and films just centered around computers. I can sort of live without that.

My mind is constantly going. For me to completely relax, I gotta get rid of my cell phone.

It doesn't make me very happy to be on my computer all the time. I've never been drawn to that world.

There are plenty of reasons to put our cellphones down now and then, not least the fact that incessantly checking them takes us out of the present moment and disrupts family dinners around the globe.

I do like to get away from technology. I still read a lot. Having said that, most of my reading is on computers or a Kindle or an iPad.

I'm desperately trying to unplug. The last thing I want is a watch that connects to my phone which connects to my iPad that connects to my computer that airplays to my TV.

I could live without my phone. And one thing I'd love to do is experience having the freedom that kids had back in the '80s.

I think I'm generally more inspired when I'm away from technology. Whether that is on a beach somewhere or just in your room with your phones and screens shut off, I think that quietness is often very inspiring.

I find that I have to just kind of avoid the Internet as much as possible. And even more so, when I go and look at it, I remember why I should be avoiding it.

Fifteen years ago, the internet was an escape from the real world. Now the real world is an escape from the internet.

I'm starting to withdraw from [technology] as much as I can. I don't do much of the social media stuff. Like, if I'm on Facebook, it changes my relation to the real world in a way that makes me feel sick - almost like I've had too much sugar or something.

I try not to spend too much time on my computer.

I'm never on my phone, really.

'Sleep' is a project I've been thinking about for many years. It just seems like society has been moving more and more in a direction where we needed it. Our psychological space is being increasingly populated by data. And we expend an enormous amount of energy curating data.

I'll go out to eat and have a really good lunch and try to shut the phone off, but I can't, really, because the social media stuff will start happening.