John Darnielle Quotes

Always write your ideas down however silly or trivial they might seem. Keep a notebook with you at all times.

If you're going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.

I have always kept notebooks and I go back to them over and over. They are my compost pile of ideas.

I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write.

I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.

I keep threatening to keep a formal journal, but whenever I start one it instantly becomes an exercise in self-consciousness. Instead of a journal I manage to have dozens of notebooks with bits and pieces of stories, poems, and notes. Almost every thing I do has its beginning in a notebook of some sort, usually written on a bus or train.

I carry a small spiral notebook with me at all times and have been doing this for many years. There's a shoe box in my closet filled with these notebooks, each riddled with notes and impressions, ideas, schemes, and soup recipes.

I've always got a notepad on or a voice recorder recording ideas.

I don't carry notebooks and I don't consciously store ideas. I try not to think that I am a writer and I am pretty good at doing that. I don't like writers, but then I don't like insurance salesmen either.

I don't know where my ideas come from, but I know where they come to. They come to my desk, and if I'm not there, they go away again.

My little notebooks were beginnings - they were the ground into which I dropped the seed... I would work in this way when I was out in the crowds, then put the stuff together at home.

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

I write every day... I never get ideas unless I'm actually writing. Ideas I get in the shower don't do me any good.

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

I've always kind of wrote when I wanted to. Once I get the idea in my head and get it outlined out, I usually just sit and write until it's done.

When I write notes in my journal, I'm just trying to scribble down as much as possible. Later on, I decide whether to follow some of those first impressions or whether to abandon them.

I'm always writing lyrics. I have so many lyrics on so many stray pieces of paper. Everywhere.

I've had so many little ideas I've written down here and there. Some ideas I've got reams of notes for.

I have an ideas book at home with far more ideas than I will ever be able to write.

I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.

I would worry if I wasn't coming up with ideas, if I wasn't inspired.

I carry around a black leather Moleskine journal all the time. And I always write ideas down, especially when I'm on set and working with actors like Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis and learning from them.

One day, I can come up with 50 content ideas, and I'm like, 'Boom, I want to do this idea, this idea, this idea.' I have a YouTube notebook, and I write them all down. Then other days, I'm like, 'I have no clue what I want to do today.' I rarely have days like that.

I often spend the majority of my time thinking and writing down notes.

I have a little pocket journal. I just put the pen on the paper and just go.