Quotes About Inspiration

Only the very greatest art invigorates without consoling.

Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.

Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story.

Praise youth and it will prosper.

A writer in the act of writing must fear neither his own words nor anything else in the world. A writer who is afraid is no true writer.

C'est beau de pouvoir aimer. C'est une grâce. Si jamais un être pouvait, une fois encore, m'inspirer un grand amour, j'espère que je serais capable d'éprouver, moi, de la reconnaissance à son égard, qu'il réponde ou non à cet amour.

A man needs to look, not down, but up to standards set so much above his ordinary self as to make him feel that he is himself "spiritually" the underdog. Anyone who thus looks up has some chance of becoming worthy to be looked up to in turn.

All good song-writers have no more than half a dozen good tunes in their systems, and if they have that many, they are liberally blessed.

Brahms writes music. I just write songs.

You've got to get up, you've got to get up,You've got to get up this morning!

Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind it is a way of engaging reality.

A beautiful print is a thing in itself, not just a halfway house on the way to the page.

A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.

Art is a staple, like bread or wine or a warm coat in winter. Man's spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach growls for food.

One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.

It's freezing up here. What did you use to keep warm?" "Indignation," said Michelangelo. "Best fuel I know. Never burns out.

Normal people do not create art.

I cannot draw a human figure if I don't know the order of his bones, muscles or tendons. Same is that I cannot draw a human face if I don't know what's going on his mind and heart. In order to paint life one must understand not only anatomy, but what people feel and think about the world they live in. The painter who knows his own craft and nothing else will turn out to be a very superficial artist.

Each of us has his own alphabet with which to create poetry.

The most perfect guide is nature. Continue without fail to draw something every day.

After all, the world is still great.

If you talk about it, you probably won't write it

When you are a free and independent writer, without employer, without hours or deadlines, you have to play little games to force yourself into the actual writing. For me, one game is to announce...that I have finally decided on my next book, that I am ready to write it...to put my pride on the line.

I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober.