Michael Bacon Quotes

Twice a year, I take myself off to a self-imposed 'writer's retreat', staying at a small inn or on a friend's farm, where I am all alone and do nothing other than write.

I wouldn't get nearly as many books written if I lived in New York. The Columbia Gorge is fantastic. When the sun shines, I just want to be outdoors.

Going off the grid is always good for me. It's the way that I've started books and finished books and gotten myself out of deadline dooms and things.

Usually when I'm out doing stuff, I'm just out in the wild, doing the wild thing. I don't really get a chance to just chill out until I come here, in my creative space.

There's something about the air and the sky and the atmosphere in the South of France that must be very conducive to work, to being creative, because I have written several of my books there. I find it so much easier because you're cut off. If you don't want to speak to anybody, basically they don't know where you are. And it's so beautiful.

I like writing in total isolation like out in the woods somewhere.

When I finish a movie, I get in my camper and drive around the country.

I love going to writers' colonies in pastoral settings where there's nothing to do but either walk around or read a book or work on your book, and they all seem helpful.

When I'm outside gardening, it can be so inspiring. I think of words and melodies. It's peaceful. Every singer-songwriter should find something outside of music that makes them as happy as gardening makes me.

For an artist or an entertainer, it's the ultimate when you can go to the forest when you're done your work and escape.

I would take my guitar to college and sit for hours in the hills humming to myself.

I live alone in a house, so for me it's very good to just be able to re-charge and just disappear and escape from reality and that's usually when I write most of my lyrics and my songs. It's a very happy productive place.

What I really like to do is to sit quietly and write. All that other stuff is a problem. Publication to reception to negotiation to... everything, it's a problem. And I like to sit outside for long periods of time and just be in the tranquility of nature. That's what I like.

I write better in Cape Breton... too many people around in Ontario. Down there I meet all sorts of non-human people, but they don't bother me, and I don't feel I have to apologize on behalf of my species quite so often.

I've been able to carve out spaces for myself. At Sundance, I'm in the mountains - my property is private. I get on a horse and ride for three, four hours. Sometimes five. I get lost. But when I'm in, I'm in.

A day away from Tallulah is like a month in the country.

I needed to be in the bush. There I find solitude and beauty and purity and focus. That's where my heart lies.

I really feel that my body craves to be in the mountains or by the ocean or in the countryside.

When I do outdoor scenes, I tend to find a quiet space where I can sit and carve a walking stick that can turn out to be interesting for me.

We work hard when we're in the studio, but then when we take our breaks, we walk outside and look around.

When I'm old I shall give up writing the big stuff and shall wander round the park thinking of songs.

I like to draw late at night when the house is quiet.

But Portugal has a peaceful feel about it. I sit on the terrace overlooking the vineyard there and I feel cut off from the world. You need that sort of thing.

You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content.

I was an only child until I was 14, and there were no other kids around the area really. So I spent a lot of time on my own in the fields or by the lake, with just my imagination for company. I suppose I never wanted to let that part of me go.