Gabrielle Zevin Quotes

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

If I think back on the books to which I have devoted my entire life, I am most surprised by those moments when I have felt as if the sentences, dreams, and pages that have made me so ecstatically happy have not come from my own imagination - that another power has found them and generously presented them to me.

While writing, I tend to repeat the same song, endlessly, for thousands of times. This helps me ignore any lyrics, and helps create a consistent mood for each book.

Writing is a funny thing. It's not like you're working on a schedule. It comes in fits and starts.

For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence.

When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.

I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.

Music has a tremendous effect on me. When it's playing, I can't think or do anything other than listen. But I can write to it.

I rarely listen to music while writing. I wish I could, but it distracts me.

I find that when I write, I need things to be quiet, but when I design, I can't bear it if it's quiet.

I'm never really conscious of what I'm being influenced by when I'm writing.

Writing more and more to the sound of music, writing more and more like music. Sitting in my studio tonight, playing record after record, writing, music a stimulant of the highest order, far more potent than wine.

It's all about the mood I'm in and the scene I'm writing. 'Cause work controls my life, writing controls my life, performing controls my life. So I don't listen to any music that's not an influence on what I'm working on that day. Music is a big influence in my work and sometimes drives the energy of where I want to go.

Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That's terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.

Weirdly, often the more I write, the more ideas I have.

I cannot live or write without music. It stimulates the normally dormant parts of my brain that come in handy when constructing fiction.

I do listen to a lot of music, but I don't listen when I'm writing.

When I do write, it happens really easily. I'll just kind of sing along to whatever I'm playing, then find a line to build off of, then sit down and write. When I do write, I take care of business!

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

I devote most of my day to writing, and try to turn out at least four pages a day. As for what triggers the creative process, it's a mystery to me! Characters often just walk on the page, and I wait to see what they do and say while I'm writing them.

I always have music playing in my studio when I design. It really gets me in the mood and allows me to focus.

It's always struck me as unfair that writing has so little sensation when it's going well.

For a long time, I would write without music, because I thought it was distracting until I appreciated that it actually unlocks a certain unconscious productivity vault in my mind.

I learned long ago, back with 'Lover Revealed,' that my job is to sit at the computer, shut up and type. Otherwise? The pictures and the voices go away!