Quotes About Inspiration

Siren voices tell me, 'You don't have to keep going on.' And then you think, 'I'm a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?' I don't know. I like being a writer.

I never try to give a message in my books. It's about living with characters long enough to hear their voices and let them tell me the story. Sometimes I would love to have a happy ending, and it doesn't happen because the character or the story leads me in another direction.

I've always had a penchant for dialects. I remember getting detention and being told, 'Have a think about where doing these funny voices might get you someday.'

Voice comes to you through a spell, a trance. The best voices are not you... they're a little away from you.

The writer has two kinds of faith: actual writing and sitting openly. Have faith in your personal effort or sweat. And faith in God, or whatever you want to call it. Then the voices will come. Faith is the big deal.

We're seeing young people find their own voices and find their activism.

Listeners want fresh voices.

I want to help lift women's voices. And I realize, in doing that, I need to use my own.

I'm a huge closet Mariah Carey fan - she's got one of the best voices probably ever.

If you are interested in writing, get out and live your life! Do a lot. See a lot. Keep your eyes and ears open. Pay attention to the different ways people speak. Read lots of different kinds of books. And then try writing in different voices and styles - don't be afraid to experiment.

When I heard Billie Holiday's voice, Nina Simone's and Ella Fitzgerald's - there was something about their voices to me that was such a different texture than what I was used to listening to at the time. Hearing those jazz voices were so different, and I think I just gravitated toward it.

I tried to fortify myself with the best nonfiction and fiction I could lay my hands on, from the essays of James Baldwin and Joan Didion, to the stories and novels of Ralph Ellison, Roberto Bolano and Celine. Distinctive voices like these were a source of constant nourishment on all range of matters, from punctuation to philosophy.

Sometimes new voices have the most spectacular vision. It is uncluttered and organic.

We all tell our own stories the way we live our lives. My story is: Life is too short to not believe in fresh voices. I don't have Hollywood stars. I have great American artists.

That's how I make work. Along the way, I take notes, I read about history and popular culture. Sometimes I act out things in the studio. I go back to my mother's hair salon so I can hear three voices going all at once. I pull inspiration from everything.

The thing that attracted me the most was comedy acting and people like Catherine Tate and Olivia Colman; people doing funny voices and accents.

I think I had a knack for music, but I think what I was more sort of talented at more than anything, because I don't think I'm a great singer, I think that I grew up imitating different voices that I heard.

I would say Alison Krauss was a big influence. Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hill. I loved, growing up, female voices with a lot of texture and a lot of character to their voices.

In every school, community center, city hall, and state capitol, there are women who are making their voices heard and standing up for the people they serve - women who aren't just demanding change but finding ways to create it. They are making an impact, and along the way, they're inspiring others to do the same.

I really want to be the black Tina Fey, where I just am able to produce my own content and produce other content for other minority filmmakers and put their voices on screen and basically be able to have free range to produce.

I'm only interested in fiction that in some way or other voices the very imagination which is conceiving it.

Sometimes you forget where the heck you are but when you get on stage, you know by the look on the people's faces and the accent in their voices where you might be.

It's really the sound of the voices, the sound of the words, the sound of the sound that we're interested in.

Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.