Francis Bacon Quotes

One's mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do.

I'm very happy for others to engage in conjecture, but if I was ever conscious of what I'm thinking about when I'm writing, oh my God, I'd be totally lost.

All stories come from the subconscious - which is why it doesn't make sense to over-plan.

I think about the characters I've created, and then I sit down and start typing and see what they will do. There's a lot of subconscious thought that goes on. It amazes me to find out, a few chapters later, why I put someone in a certain place when I did.

If the mind is calm, your spontaneity and honest thoughts appear. You become more spontaneous.

Novels for me are how I find out what's going on in my own head. And so that's a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

My best writing has to do with an internal process that I'm working out unconsciously and put into my characters.

The other thing in composition is opening up the unconscious.

Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

I try to live instinctively. And I guess I've always enjoyed living in a fantasy world, daydreaming.

When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

The way I personally work is I like to write what I know, what I feel, and also where I am.

Sometimes, I knew generally what I was going to do, but I've never written anything down. Call it a sixth sense: the lines just come.

It's important not to think too much about what you do.

Your subconscious mind is trying to help you all the time. That's why I keep a journal - not for chatter but for mostly the images that flow into the mind or little ideas. I keep a running journal, and I have all of my life, so it's like your gold mine when you start writing.

It feels like your subconscious can be way ahead of you, as a songwriter. You can write a song that you think is about one thing and months later you're playing it and thinking, hang on, this is completely informing where I am now.

You can't slot a time and a space and think 'ok now it's time to sit and compose.' It just doesn't work like that for me.

I've written in the middle of a conversation or the grocery store or at another band's concert or in the last moments before falling asleep. It's pretty unpredictable. I think it's always flowing, and sometimes I'm not listening. There's no formula for when I'm going to be able to be a good listener to myself.

It often happens that things come into the mind in a more finished form than could have been achieved after much study.

The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't as conscious as I am. It would be so much easier.

Learning to cultivate an awareness of the known and unknown within one's being often leads to a healthier and more realistic sense of self.

...imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic.

When I write, I solemnly visit myself.