Reading is the unbelievably healthy way _x000D_ my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. _x000D_ Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to _x000D_ make contact with reality after a day of making things up.
Nora EphronRead
I go through periods where I work a great deal at all hours of the day whenever I am around a typewriter, and then I go through spells where I don't do anything. I just sort of have lunch - all day. I never have been able to stick to a schedule. I work when there is something due or when I am really excited about a piece.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the unpredictable nature of creativity and the non-linear approach to productivity.
Nora Ephron reflects on her fluctuating work habits, acknowledging that her productivity is often driven by deadlines or bursts of excitement rather than a consistent schedule. She embraces the realities of creative work, suggesting that it does not conform to conventional structures and instead thrives on inspiration and necessity.
In practice
In a speech about creative processes at a writers' conference, this quote could illustrate the diverse working styles of authors.
Reading is the unbelievably healthy way _x000D_ my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. _x000D_ Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to _x000D_ make contact with reality after a day of making things up.
Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. ... Reading is bliss.
I just want to go on making movies, and some of them will be completely meaningless, except, of course, to me.
Every so often I would look at my women friends who were happily married and didn't cook, and I would always find myself wondering how they did it. Would anyone love me if I couldn't cook? I always thought cooking was part of the package: Step right up, it's Rachel Samstat, she's bright, she's funny and she can cook!
Marriages come and go, but divorce is forever.
What I love about cooking is that after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick! It's a sure thing! It's a sure thing in a world where nothing is sure; it has a mathematical certainty in a world where those of us who long for some kind of certainty are forced to settle for crossword puzzles.
The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.
The glory of a workman, still more of a master workman, that he does his work well, ought to be his most precious possession; like the honor of a soldier, dearer to him than life.
A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man or woman who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether they be painter or ploughman.
I love working if it's with people who are capable of having a good time. People with a little bit of enjoyment of what they do. If it's enormous pressure, and people feel that their lives are at stake, then it's agony. So I try to pick projects where I feel like I'm going to avoid those traps.
I love to be busy. I'm envious of people who are able to take their spare time and relax. All I like to do is work. Perhaps it's lingering Calvinist guilt?
The purpose of work is to give people a chance to utilize and develop their faculties; to enable them to overcome their ego-centeredness by joining others in a common task; and to bring for the goods and services needed for a becoming existence.
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