Quotes About Inspiration

the conscious need of the strong poet [defined broadly as the creator of new metaphors]...to come to terms with the blind impress which chance has given him, to make a self for himself by redescribing that impress in terms which are, if only marginally, his own.

The poem is the point at which our strength gave out.

People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny.

You just kind of have faith. If that sounds kind of mystical, it's because I really don't know how it works, but I trust that it does. I try to write the way I read, in order to find out what happens next.

Ultimately, your theme will find you. You don't have to go looking for it.

What I discovered I liked best about striking out on my bicycle was that the farther I got from home, the more interesting and unusual my thoughts became.

Sometimes when you've pulled and pushed at a problem without getting an answer, or tried to grab a too-slippery memory, if you completely dismiss the matter from consciousness, often — when it's least expected — the answer will pop up like toast from the depths of your unconscious toaster. I do it all the time. In fact, that may be why some people call me Shell Scott, the Unconscious Detective.

This book is dedicated to: Hudson's Bay Scotch Kent Cigarettes and Yuban Coffee without which it might never have been written.

In recognition that any good idea is a fragile thing, you have to give it a few minutes to breath—like a good red wine.

There are all kinds of writers. The best writers write children's books.

You will see at precisely what moment the writer ceases to think of his character as an instrument to be manipulated and think of him as someone with whom he has fallen in love. For it is always, must always be, a matter of love.

On the other hand, if there's an underlying core of poetry that I go to, I go to the sea. I've lived on the sea all my life. I live on the sea in Cape Breton.

Where Christ's Spirit is, it will bring men from their altitudes and excellencies, and make them to stoop to serve the church, and account it an honour to be an instrument to do good.

If the dead are watching, I want them to see us writing, dancing, singing, painting. I want them to see that we still reach out to each other.

Sometimes, at night, in bed, before I fall asleep, I think about a poem I might write, someday, about my heart, says the heart.

When you have nothing to say, set something on fire. A blurry landscape is useless.

I cut off my head and threw it in the sky. It turned into birds. I called it thinking.

Something has happened in the paint tonight and it is worth keeping.

Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future.

Let me do it right for once, for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes, you know the story, simply heaven.

Forget about his insides, his plumbing and his furnaces, put a thing in his hand and be done with it. No one wants to know what's in his head. It should be enough. To make something beautiful should be enough. It isn't. It should be.

Sometimes, at night, in bed, before I fall asleep, I think about a poem I might write, someday, about my heart, says the heart. — Richard Siken, from "The Language of the Birds," War of the Foxes (Copper Canyon Press, 2015)

I put on my best shirt because the painting looked so bad. Color bleeds, so make it work for you. Gravity pulls, so make it work for you. Rubbing your feet at night or clutching your stomach in the morning. It was illegible - no single line of sight, too many angles of approach, smoke in the distance. It made no sense. When you have nothing to say, set something on fire. A blurry landscape is useless.

Everyone has a story that makes me stronger. I know that the work I do is important and I enjoy it, but it is nice to hear the feedback of what we do to inspire others.