The irony of multitasking is that it's exhausting: when you're doing two or three things simultaneously, you use more energy than the sum of energy required to do each task independently. You're also cheating yourself because your're not doing anything excellently. You're compromising your virtuosity. In the words of T. S. Elliot, you're 'distracted from distractions by distractions'.

You only need one good reason to commit to an idea, not four hundred. But if you have four hundred reasons to say yes and one reason to say no, the answer is probably no.

It is extremely arrogant and very foolish to think that you can ever outwit your audience.

I think a sense of humor will help get a girl out of a dark place.

Traveling the paths of greatness, even in someone else's footprints, is a vital means to acquiring skill.

In the end, there is no ideal condition for creativity. What works for one person is useless for another. The only criterion is this: Make it easy on yourself. Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down. It should make you want to be there, and once you find it, stick with it. To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming. All preferred working states, no matter how eccentric, have one thing in common: When you enter into them, they compel you to get started.

There really is nothing I ever had access to that I didn't appreciate.