Quotes about Inspiration

when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.   This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication.

If the upper realm is, as Plato suggested, the sphere of perfect love, truth, justice, and beauty, then the artist seeks to call down the magic of this world and to create, by dint of labor and luck, the closest-to-sublime simulacra of those qualities that he or she can.

Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. "I write only when inspiration strikes," he replied. "Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp. That's a pro.

Sometimes on Wednesday I'll read something that I wrote on Tuesday and I'll think, "This is crap. I hate it and I hate myself." Then I'll re-read the identical passage on Thursday. To my astonishment, it has become brilliant overnight. Ignore false negatives. Ignore false positives. Both are Resistance. Keep working.

When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.

When we raise our game aesthetically, we elevate it morally and spiritually as well.

A king does not expend his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.   What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.

Instead we are tapped into an unquenchable, undepletable, inexhaustible source of wisdom, consciousness, companionship. Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they're better friends, truer friends. And we're better and truer to them.

The only items you get to keep are love for the work, will to finish, and passion to serve the ethical, creative Muse.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now."   —W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition