Usually, writers will do anything to avoid writing.

For instance, the previous sentence was written at one o’clock this afternoon. It is now a quarter to four. I have spent the past two hours and forty-five minutes:

• Sorting my neckties by width,
• looking up the word paisly in three dictionaries,
• attempting to find the town of that name on The New York Times Atlas of the World map of Scotland,
• sorting my reference books by width,
• trying to get the bookcase to stop wobbling by stuffing a matchbook cover under its corner,
• dialing the telephone number on the matchbook cover to see if I should take computer courses at night,
• looking at the computer ads in the newspaper and deciding to buy a computer because writing seems to be so difficult on my old Remington,
• reading an interesting article on sorghum farming in Uruguay that was in the newspaper next to the computer ads,
• cutting that and other interesting articles out of the newspaper,
• sorting – by width – all the interesting articles I’ve cut out of newspapers recently,
• fastening them neatly together with paper clips and making a very attractive paper clip necklace and bracelet set…

…which I will present to my girlfriend as soon as she comes home from the three-hour low-impact aerobic workout that I made her go to so I could have some time alone to write.
– P.J. O’Rourke, The Wit and Wisdom of P. J. O’Rourke