Creative Detachment Quotes

I try not to look at my old stuff or my new stuff, really. I'm not a fan.

I try not to let myself get too wrapped up in the image of whatever my books have become in the outside world.

When I create characters, I create a world to inhabit and they begin to feel very real for me. I don't belong in a psych ward, I don't think, but they become very real, like my own family, and then I have to say goodbye, close the door, and work on other things.

I haven't the faintest idea what my royalties are. I haven't the faintest idea how many copies of books sold, or how many books that I've written. I could look these things up; I have no interest in them. I don't know how much money I have. There are a lot of things I just don't care about.

The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.

When I look at a film, I don't think, 'Oh, I wish I had done that' because I haven't done that role, so it doesn't matter.

When I'm writing a song for another artist, I purposefully make it not for me; otherwise, I get too attached.

My body of work means nothing to me.

I don't watch a lot of my work. I'm not really interested in seeing it after I do it. Because I came from theater, where, you know, it's impossible to actually review your work, so why would I bother under any other circumstances?

Once the film is released, once my job is over, I can't see the film again.

I've never watched any of the adaptations of my books. I've never wanted to, and there's absolutely no chance of me doing so in the future.

When I'm [playing] a character, I can look at it and know it's not me and not be concerned with how it looks.

I attempt to create a world that hypnotizes me as I make it. I hope others can get lost in it in the same way, but to be honest, I don't care that much. It isn't like a basketball player is out on the court hoping that people like the game of basketball as the game goes on. If people don't see it, they don't see it. It is a fragile thing and most people recognize that and respect it. Even if for whatever reason, they don't like the painting.

Once I release a song, it's not just about me or the people... I write about. They're my stories, but they're not really mine any more.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art. Eliot said that art is the escape from personality, which I think is right. We know that Velázquez embezzled money from the Spanish court and wanted power and so on, but you can't see this in his art.

For me, there's a fine line between telling a story that's fictional with lots of details and then removing yourself too much from it, so it's bloodless, a little too fictional.

It's very important to feel foreign. I was born in England, but when I'm being a writer, everyone in England is foreign to me.

My strength as a TV writer was my total lack of interest in television.

The secret of being a writer: not to expect others to value what you've done as you value it. Not to expect anyone else to perceive in it the emotions you have invested in it. Once this is understood, all will be well.

I want all of my songs to do well whether I've written them or not.

The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting.

When I write lyrics for Priest, I'm writing them for Priest. I'm not writing them for me.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

Sometimes, when you get into a record, it's like writing a book, and you get so far inside the story you can't tell anymore if it's gonna be good to an outside listener.