Quotes About Inspiration

To create works of art meant no less to him than to paint life, not mere reality, but the principle of life.

This isn't business. This is poetry.

I knew of no instruction manual for reaching a higher level of humanity and a greater wisdom. But I felt intuitively that laughter was the beginning of wisdom, as is was indispensable for survival.

Beauty is a call to admiration, not to action.

If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. I have to do so for all the Ikea employees.

The cure for writer's cramp is writer's block.

Voli pindarici! Voli pindarici! Ma per nulla non si diedero l'ali alle rondini, il guizzo al baleno, ed alla mente umana la sublime istantaneità del pensiero.

Divina poesia! - diss'egli togliendo gli occhi dal bel tramonto che omai si scolorava in un vago crepuscolo - chi primo si alzò con te nelle speranze infinite fu il vero consolatore dell'umanità. Per insegnare agli uomini la felicità bisognerebbe educarli poeti, non scienziati o anatomici.

I nervi ubbidiscono all'anima, le braccia all'idea, e dove non vi sono né idee né anima, o intorpidisce il letargo o la vita stultizza.

Forgive the dreamer Forgive the dream

Of thee I sing, baby,You have got that certain thing, baby,Shining star and inspirationWorthy of a mighty nation,Of thee I sing!

Damn it all! What rhymes with rhythm?

It's hard to make something that's interesting. It's really, really hard. It's like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that's written or anything that's created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity... So what it takes to make anything more than mediocre is such an act of will...

Great stories happen to those who can tell them.

I finally did work out a very good relationship with my father, but it was rough growing up. We had a lot of conflict, and I think it surfaced in many of my works.

One great difference between good writing, that readers overlook, and bad writing, that they fail to notice, has to do with the number of rewrites and revisions usually required by the former. It isn't at all easy to write clear, declarative prose—transparency evolves from ruthless cutting and trimming and is hard work—while lumpy, tangle-footed writing flows from the pen as if inspired by the Muse.

A coincidence is a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous." -Irene Hannon

that will benefit hundreds of people. Maybe thousands.

Mine your words as if digging for diamonds and gold.

why do you think that?

What would I do with billions? I don't need it. Would it make me a better artist?

Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.