David Fincher Quotes

Abrams's Advice: When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.

I am a great procrastinator. When the writing is going really well, the laundry piles up.

A lot of people don't feel like doing very much. Or one project is really all they can do at one time. I can have five or six things going at the same time. It doesn't bother me or tire me, but sometimes it does rattle me.

I can multitask very well. But I know exactly when to block off anything coming in from the outside and just stay focused on the film.

The hardest thing when you think about focusing. You think focusing is about saying "Yes." No. Focusing is about saying "No." And when you say "No," you piss off people.

If you'd have asked me two years ago, I'd have been like "No, anything and everything. Go for it." Now, I want to focus on doing the best I can each time. But I think it's hard for me to only put out one record a year. Because I get too antsy. But it's good I'm learning to do that, because each record counts. And you should make it count.

I think of there being two conditions that creative people go through. I think it's fear and curiosity.

Wasting your time in anxious worry over what you may not have is a good way to waste what you need to get it.

When I first started writing, I had a very difficult time switching between projects, but now it's not only second-nature, it's indispensable: If I stall on one project, I can switch to another and stay productive.

I'm a better musician now, and I rarely practice because age has taught me the value of economy. And I think I'm a better writer now because I don't waste as much time, dilly-dallying and sassafrassin' and sloop and sloppin' and frying eggs. When you start writing, half the time you're just saying howdy to the page. My process now is a little more lean and muscular. I don't waste a lot of time. When I had kids, I learned how much time I had before, and how much time you actually need to do something. If you don't have time, you'll just do it and get it done.

The more you have to do, the more you have only NOW to get it done. That's why busy people get the most done.

I do my stuff, my "mixtapes," as you say. We just need time to capture. After that, I do not know what he thinks, but for me, it is time to get things together.

I'm usually two projects ahead. It's hard for me because I don't have a really long attention span.

People frequently fail when they try to do everything at once. They approach a massive project and quickly get discouraged. Taking small, but high-value steps takes less time, and you learn more in the long run.

I think I've only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing. The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.

I personally think if you're given four months instead of four weeks on a play, with the people who want to work that way, the play will invariably be different and stronger, and much more fulfilling and richer on all counts. There's no doubt in my mind about it.

Nevertheless, hateful as saying 'No' always is to an imaginative person, and certain as the offence may be that it will cause to individuals whose own work does not require isolated effort, the writer who is engaged on a book must learn to say it. He must say it consistently to all interrupters; to the numerous callers and correspondents who want him to speak, open bazaars, see them for 'only' ten minutes, attend literary parties, put people up, or read, correct and find publishers for semi-literate manuscripts by his personal friends.

I want you to think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass.

I don't drive, so one of my assistants drives me to my writing room, and I have a calendar on the wall telling me how much time I have left, and how far behind I am. I look at it and panic, and decide which scene to work on. And you sit there plonking notes until something makes sense, and you don't think about it any more. Good tunes come when you're not thinking about it.

I think my biggest career mistake has been taking on too much. And I think this is kind of - I think it's related to the Internet world, where you're always multitasking and you have a million windows open and you feel like you can do a lot at the same time.

I'm simply the happiest, the placidest, when I'm writing, and so I suppose that that, for me, is the final answer. ... It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time.

You could be in the United Nations office all night every night and still feel like you were not making a sufficient dent in the world's problems. I think the key is prioritization. But every job presents the tyranny of the inbox, of allowing the urgent to crowd out the important. So we have to have our lodestars.

When I am directing, it is much, much, much, much, much different. I'm a much more practical person in the world, I show up on time, I am very rigorous about scheduling, and I am very focused. But when I'm writing I am just a big, irresponsible mess and I'm just impossible to get in touch with, and I don't spend time with friends.

The best cure for procrastination is to have so much on your plate that procrastination is no longer an option.

As a director, you just have to kind of like just get through the first project before starting on the next one.