For the first twenty years of my life I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even make it to bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called "going to sleep" but rather "passing out," a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.
David Sedaris
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It takes the average human seven minutes to go to sleep, but according to Hand's Human Physiology, it takes the same average human fifteen to twenty minutes to wake up. It is as if sleep is a pool from which emerging is more difficult than entering. When the sleeper wakes, he or she comes up by degrees, from deep sleep to light sleep to what is sometimes called "waking sleep," a state in which the sleeper can hear sounds and will even respond to questions without being aware of it later...except perhaps as fragments of dreams.
Stephen King
When you read a really good piece of prose you think, "You bastard. How can you write like that?" I know bloody well that the bloke has suffered to get it like that. Same thing when you go to a specialist. "Oh, he was marvellous. But do you know, he charged me 150 quid for twenty minutes." Well, you’re not paying ?150 for twenty minutes, you’re paying for forty years of learning how to do the twenty minutes. I think it’s exactly the same with writing. When you pay for a paperback, you’re paying for years of learning how to do it. When I work, I work incredibly hard.
Bruce Robinson
[He would spend] three days straight writing a couple hundred pages. I didn't get any sleep either because every ten minutes [he would ask] "How do you spell _____, I need some coffee, Is there any food?" …He'd lay down for about ten minutes, get up again, and write some more.
Philip Kindred - a.k.a. PKD Dick
"Go to hell," Covenant mumbled. "Don’t you ever sleep?"
"The Bloodguard do not sleep."
"What?"
"No Bloodguard has slept since the Haruchai swore their Vow."
With an effort, Covenant pulled himself into a sitting position. He peered blearily at Bannor for a moment, then muttered, "You’re already in hell."Stephen R. Donaldson
Sedaris, David
Sedgwick, Edie
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