Quotes About Inspiration

Girls, there are poets who learn from you to say, what you, in your aloneness, are; and they learn through you to live distantness, as the evenings through the great stars become accustomed to eternity.

Often a star was waiting for you to notice it. A wave rolled toward you out of the distant path, or as you walked under an open window, a violin yielded itself to your hearing. All this was mission.

Art too is just a way of living.

Often when I imagine you, your wholeness cascades into many shapes. You run like a herd of luminous deer, and I am dark; I am forest.

We make our way through Everything like thread passing through fabric, giving shape to images that we ourselves do not know.

Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.

with poems one accomplishes so little when one writes them early. One should hold off and gather sense and sweetness a whole life long, a long life if possible, and then, right at the end, one could perhaps write ten lines that are good.

Swells, Marina? we ocean, depths, Marina? we sky!

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.

Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk only on feelings. That faces upward and in its mirror receives heavenly roads, which travel along themselves. That has learned to walk upon water when it scoops, that walks upon wells, transfiguring every path. That steps into other hands, changes those that are like it into a landscape: wanders and arrives within them, fills them with arrival.

It was not in me It came and went I wanted to hold it It was held by wine (I no longer know what it was)

Perhaps creating something is nothing but an act of profound remembrance.

And those who come together in the night and are entwined in rocking delight do an earnest work and gather sweetnesses, gather depth and strength for the song of some coming poet, who will arise to speak of ecstasies beyond telling.

Live for a while in the books you love. Learn from them what is worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be returned to you a thousand times over. Whatever your life may become, these books -of this I am certain- will weave through the web of your unfolding. They will be among the strongest of all threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys.

If you think your world isn't poetic enough, or exciting enough to tell a story about, that's not because it's a dull world, that's because you're not poet enough to wake its soul up.

Live for a while in these books, learn from them what you feel is worth learning, but most of all love them. This love will be returned to you thousands upon thousands of times, whatever your life may become — it will, I am sure, go through the while fabric of your becoming, as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys.

Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his conscious reflection, his progressive steps, mysterious even to himself, should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition.

And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.

For the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indiferent place.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Wenn der Alltag dir arm erscheint, klage ihn nicht an – klage dich an, daß du nicht stark genug bist, seine Reichtümer zu rufen, denn für den Schaffenden gibt es keine Armut.

Poetry is the past that breaks out in our hearts.

And if there is one thing more that I must say to you, it is this: Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.

Du mußt dein Leben ändern.