Quotes About Inspiration

When the bright angel dominates, out comes a great work of art, a Michelangelo David or a Beethoven symphony.

I was just learning to play guitar when Tracy Chapman came out. She wrote these songs, she played them by herself and I so admired her for that.

How does a copy become more than a copy? Is art the creation of something new and original, or simply the continuous enlargement, or the distillation, of an observation that came before

How does a copy become more than a copy? Is art the creation of something new and original, or simply the continuous enlargement, or the distillation, of an observation that came before? What answer would my father give?

Kai, she thought, you are as lost as I am. You have no idea where this beauty comes from and you know better than to think that such clarity could come from your own heart. Maybe, like Sparrow, Kai was terrified that one day the sound would shut off.

When acquaintances met him on the road, Wen said he couln't stop to discuss the Communists or Nationalists, Stalin, Truman or the weather, because he was composing a six-character eight line regulated verse in his head, and any variation in his path wuld push the words out of order. It was a lie. In fact, he was empty of poetry a d afraid of words.

There was Glenn Gould hunched over the piano, wearing a dark suit, hearing patterns far beyond the range of what most of us are given to perceive,

A major study conducted by IBM found that the single most sought after trait in CEOs is creativity.

Educational projects like Odyssey of the Mind are a terrific example of how to encourage creative problem solving in kids. Do talk to your child's school about bringing this type of program into the classroom.

Name one hero who was happy." "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it

They leaned towards him, like flowers to the sun, drinking in his luster. It was as Odysseus had said: he had light enough to make heroes of them all.

His fingers touched the strings and all my thoughts were displaced. The sound was pure and sweet as water, bright as lemons. It was like no music I had ever heard before. It had warmth as a fire does, a texture and weight like polished ivory. It buoyed and soothed at once.

You make the rarest canvas, love

The poets were always correct,'' I say softly. ''You are half my soul.

Circe," Apollo said, and it was the greatest chime of all. Every melody in the world belonged to him.

It was easy to see how such lovely things might become songs.

He was one of the greatest of our kind, and the drops that fell from him were golden, smearing his back with a terrible beauty.

When sculptors shape their stone, they shape it after him.

I felt him looking at me, admiring his work. He had not carved me like this, but he was imagining doing it. A beautiful statue, named The Supplicant.

No wonder I had been so slow, I thought. All this while I had been a weaver without wool, a ship without sea. Yet look where I sail.

When I was a boy and everyone played at wrestling monsters like Heracles, I dreamed of being Daedalus instead. It seemed the greater genius to look at raw wood and iron, and imagine marvels.

But is this not what poetry must do? To say the nothing that cannot be said?

The real power of effective leadership is maximizing other people's potential which inevitably demands also ensuring that they get the credit. When our ego won't let us build another person up, when everything has to build us up, then the effectiveness of the organization reverts to depending instead on how good we are in the technical aspects of what we do. And we have stopped leading and inspiring others to great heights.

Christ wrote a beautiful tune, which the church has often performed well, and often badly. But the melody was never completely drowned out. Sometimes it became a symphony.