Adam Mansbach Quotes

The problem with too beautiful a view is that it's alright for the mulling stage. But for the writing stage, you want to be somewhere without a view, especially if it is very different from what you're writing.

There's no writer's block; there's only distraction.

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.

When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world.

People have been asking me, "What advice do you have for young writers?" I tell them: a) get off social media; b) don't ask your friends what they think about your work or your ideas. You need to focus and be insane within yourself to build your sandcastle. The mind is so malleable and you need to have a steel trap around it, at least while you're working on something.

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

If I'm in the middle of a take and I start to think about what I'm doing, I just mess up and I have to stop and so I find that for me, you really need to trust your instinct.

I can't listen to music while writing - any such distraction would have dreadful consequences.

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 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.

Composing demands a degree of isolation.

I write best late at night, when everyone in the house has gone to bed. There's something magical about that late night silence that appeals to me.

In my studio, it is unkempt and unattractive. Once I'm in my work, I don't notice where I am.

When I'm writing something and I'm really into it, that's all I can think about, and it becomes the most important thing in the world to me, and it may not be that, in reality.

When I'm writing, I am lost in my book. Except family and close friends, I don't care about what critics, publishers or readers might think.

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.

In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldn't turn off the outside world to the extent that I can now.

You cannot be creative with people around you.

Writing is a very lonely occupation. To write you need to concentrate, to concentrate you need to lock yourself away. No distractions; you want your stream of thought uninterrupted.

I'm a believer that you shouldn't really talk about the drawing until you're done with the drawing.

I rarely listen to music while writing. I wish I could, but it distracts me.

The funny thing is, whenever I'm working on something, I kind of forget there's a lot of people watching. It makes it easier to be in the moment and to tell a story as well as possible.

Sometimes when you're an artist, you need to be in your own head; you need to stay in it to be able to get to a good place.

I've tried writing with music on, but I find it distracting.

When I perform and the crowd is cheering, there's a ringing noise in my head. I'm just zoned in, and even though I know there are people watching me, all I hear is this ringing inside of me.