"A lot of the best work I've ever done started out as something completely different because I gave myself permission to have space around my time and expectations."
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Quote collection
Merlin Mann quotes (page 2 of 3)
43 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Distractions have never prevented a Writing Writer Who Writes from writing; distractions are an excuse proffered by Non-Writing Non-Writers Who are Not-Writing for why they are not writing."
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"My narrative is that I've never known what's coming next-I still don't. I fell down the right set of stairs and have been surrounded by people who have picked me up and said, “Let's try this again.” It's been one anxious block of uncertainty after another."
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"Come back, paragraphs. America needs you."
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"Stop. I’m not going to take any more input until I’ve made something with what I got."
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"Creative work only seems like a magic trick to people who don't understand that it's ultimately still work."
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"A priority is observed, not manufactured or assigned. Otherwise, it's necessarily not a priority."
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"People either make things or they don't. Inspiration is a poster."
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"When you die, no one's going to remember what iPhone you had."
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"If you want to make a chili, you're going to break some cows."
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"Like tornadoes and cold sores, good work happens with total disregard to whether I'm 'into it.'"
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"Personally, it's changed my game - it's how I think now. Can't imagine writing more than a paragraph in anything that doesn't do MMD."
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"All self-help is Buddhism with a service mark"
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"Although your time and attention are finite, the demands on your time and attention are infinite."
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"If you need to appear on an internet list to know whether you're someone's friend, you may have problems a computer can't solve."
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"Creative work, summarized: In the time you set aside each day to work your ass off, ignore anything that makes you consider stopping."
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"Being consistent is way less interesting than being yourself. And if you're not interesting? Good luck with your Big Consistency Project."
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"I think all of the best nonfiction that has ever been made comes from the result of someone who can't stop thinking about a certain topic - a very specific aspect of a certain topic in some cases. And second, they got really good at figuring out what they had to say about it."
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"By my reckoning, I only need about 200 more takeout coffee cups to complete my bitterly ironic mosaic of Al Gore."
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"Typing in all lowercase is popular among young people, SMS users, and anyone who feels literacy has become too time-consuming."
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