Lydia Davis Quotes

I have a basic indolence about me which is essential to writing. ... It's thinking time, it's hanging-out time, it's daydreaming time. You know, it's lie-around-the-bed time, it's sitting-like-a-dope-in-your-chair time. And that seems to me essential to any work.

My mind works in idleness. To do nothing is often my most profitable way.

Loafing is the most productive part of a writer's life.

I relax completely when I'm at rest. I don't think of numbers; I don't think of work.

I'm perfectly happy doing nothing. I'll hang around the house and take the dog to the park.

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

If I'm not working, I don't know what to do.

I'm not shy, not reclusive, not any of those things, but the idea of a day in front of me when I have nothing to do, is just, oh what pleasure!

I'm a big fan of not working.

Another reason I did not make films is that I liked being unemployed, since that is when I read, study and write.

The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.

It's a good idea to have a break, to let your mind rest and so you can start to cultivate ideas.

The exquisite art of idleness, one of the most important things that any University can teach.

Sometimes I don't write at all. Someone once asked me, "What do you do when you're not writing?" And I said, "I idle."

Take your mind out every now and then and dance on it. It is getting all caked up.

I don't want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day.

I don't really think of time off as writing blocks. I think that's a western notion of demonizing inactivity. When your imagination decides it needs to take a nap. maybe that's what it needs to do.

When the mind is allowed to relax, inspiration often follows.

My counsel is, to force nothing, and rather to trifle and sleep away all unproductive days and hours, than on such days to compose something that will afterwards give no pleasure.

This is the great luxury of not working: the moment you read a book that has nothing to do with work, you know you're really relaxed. And I have a sh*t attention span. I can't concentrate for more than five minutes.

leisure is an attitude of mind, not simply remission of work.

Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams.

The intellect must not be kept at consistent tension, but diverted by pastimes.... The mind must have relaxation, and will rise stronger and keener after recreation.

Paradoxically, to be truly idle, you also have to be efficient.

The first principle of all action is leisure.