Creative Concentration Quotes

When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.

A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.

I've noticed that sometimes when you keep things a little smaller, it's easier to focus on the creative aspects of what you're doing.

In a photo, you just do a click, but in art you have to put in so much energy. This concentration of energy and attention says something that other media cannot say.

I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed.

[King René of Anjou (1409-80)] would not listen to the news of his son having lost the Kingdom of Naples, because he would not bedisturbed when painting a picture of a partridge.

the arts are life accelerated and concentrated.

Without great solitude no serious work is possible.

A playwright who limits himself - or is limited - to a handful of characters is forced to concentrate on the essentials of the situation that he has chosen to portray.

When I'm painting and in the zone, it's difficult for me to stop. It can take me half a day to get into that space, and once I do, I only talk to a certain few people who won't disrupt it. Home to sleep and back at it, nothing else outside of getting food. Everything else is an annoyance getting in my way.

To select, combine and concentrate that which is beautiful in nature and admirable in art is as much the business of the landscape painter in his line as in the other departments of art.

The artists of the past who impressed me were the ones who really focused their work.

I won't read novels while writing novels.

It is not a dreamlike state, but the somehow insulated state, that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He's aware of where he is and what he's doing, but his mind is on the playing of the instrument with an internal sense of rightness.

The concentration of the elite athlete is akin perhaps to the concentration of the writer.

My approach has always been to put 100% into the movie I'm making right now. I think sometimes filmmakers put too much thought into the grand franchise they're going to build. And guess what? If the first movie doesn't work there is no franchise, so I'm always concentrated on making the best, best possible movie right now.