Quotes About Inspiration

Do not copy me," [Antoine] Bourdelle repeatedly told his students. "Sing your own song.

In his Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust would model his Baron de Charlus on Montesquiou, just as he would base the Princess Yourbeletieff and Madame Verdurin on Misia, the actress Berma on Sarah Bernhardt, and elements of the character of Bergotte on Prince Edmond de Polignac (although more on Anatole France).

What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake.

Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.

To help create positive change in others, you must first find the catalyst for positive change in yourself," Mary Miller, Changing Direction: Ten Choices That Impact Your Dreams (Chapter 1).

THE TAHITIANS don't have a word that means "art." The closest expression in their language translates to something like "I'm doing the best I can." Ever since I heard this it has become a kind of mantra to me. I try and apply it to my own work, to my students and anyone who shares his or her work with me. If we live with the idea of perfection, we will never do anything. The notion paralyzes us, but doing the best we can, this is possible. I

resonate deeply in modern imaginations

His internal God-inspired vision for himself was realized through the acceptance of his previously unacceptable physical vision.

I simply do not distinguish between work and play.

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket you put your life into it and make something out of that.

It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone.

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.

I Go Down To The Shore I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall— what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do.

One of the things I've learned is never to horde ideas, because either they are not so relevant or they've gone stale. Whatever it is, pour it out.

Alexander could transmit imagination as some other could transmit lust.

It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that. How many have tried, because of him? Not only those I have seen; there will be men to come. Those who look in mankind only for their own littleness, and make them believe in that, kill more than he ever will in all his wars.

Do you know that old song about Orpheus, how he played his lyre on the mountainside, and found a lion had crouched at his feet to listen? I'm no Orpheus, I know; but sometimes I see the lion's eyes. Where did it go, after the music, what became of it? The story doesn't say.

Speak for me, Nikeratos. Someone's soul is always listening." Someone's always is, I suppose, if one only knew. Plato never forgot it.

All'inizio andai da Socrate", disse, "per il suo metodo negativo. Mi piaceva vederlo minare alla base la sicurezza degli stolti. Ecco, pensavo, un uomo che non addomestica la verità, ma la segue anche nel deserto. Perciò lo seguii a mia volta; e Socrate mi condusse dove non avevo pensato di andare".

There is madness in youth, but sometimes a god inspires it.

Do you every worry about the situation you leave your characters in when you stop writing? I mean, they've got to stay put like that till one starts again.

To hate excellence is to hate the gods.

He was filled with a vast sense of the momentous, of unknown mysteries. He did not know what he should demand of himself, nor did it seem to matter, for he had not chosen this music he moved to, it had chosen him.

The imagination equips us to perceive reality when it is not fully materialized.