Taylor Hackford Quotes

I can be horrifically single-minded.

He like a rock in the sea unshaken stands his ground.

I don't ever blink, honestly.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

I try to stay focused on my creativity.

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

But I never listen to music while I'm writing.

I can concentrate on my art.

Don't stop. Don't slow down. Keep focused.

When I'm in the studio, I stay in the studio, like, sometimes 20 hours out the day.

Nothing will distract me from my focus, my galactic mind.

When I make a film, I don't watch a lot of other films. I read a lot; I try to read poems, things that can liberate my human condition, that make me go away... I spend a lot of the time doing nothing, just concentrating on the subject. Sometimes I'll sit in my chair for two or three hours without doing anything.

Nothing can distract me.

I can only listen to what I'm working on, at the time. I can't listen to anything else because I don't want to copy it.

To have the ability to withdraw into oneself and forget everything around one when one is creating - What, I think is the only requirement for being able to bring forth something beautiful. The whole thing is - a mystery.

I make one image—though 'make' is not the right word; I let, perhaps, an image be 'made' emotionally in me and then apply to it what intellectual & critical forces I possess—let it breed another, let that image contradict the first, make, of the third image bred out of the other two together, a fourth contradictory image, and let them all, within my imposed formal limits, conflict.

Creativity is contagious. And so is banality. Criticism is an art in itself. Don't let the dullness around destroy the creativity within. T.S. Eliot said, "honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry." Good to remember.

Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.

I think writers, by nature, are more observers instead of participators. I am no where near as much of that as Bob Dylan. But when your antenna is up you are pretty fixated and there is not much room in your life for anything else.

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.

If I come across an issue, or something I feel strongly about, and I happen to think of a song that would go in that direction, then I do it. But that's not what I start out, necessarily, to do. Sometimes I may have an idea for a song - "Well, I'm going to write about a thing.

Writing is my passion. It is a way to experience the ecstatic. The root understanding of the word ecstasy—“to stand outside”—comes to me in those moments when I am immersed so deeply in the act of thinking and writing that everything else, even flesh, falls away.

Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.

It takes me probably about four hours to get into the groove [with making music]. And it's really important for me to not break the groove.

It present to allow me to ask myself questions about what I'm doing. I think that's what visual art does - it either reminds you of something or allows you to question something. I don't know why Robert Motherwell; I love so many different artists.