INSPIRATION QUOTES
quotations about inspiration
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Out of My Later Years
When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.
SIGMUND FREUD
attributed, Great Quotes for Great Educators
Inspiration is the burning lamp of genius.
ALEXANDER JOLLY
attributed, Day's Collacon
The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life
I think inspiration is always around; it's just a question of whether or not you're noticing it.
JOHN GREEN
Chicago Public Library interview
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
THOMAS EDISON
Life
The poet invites inspiration by meditation, as the prophets raised themselves to ecstasies by prayer.
VICTOR HUGO
"Scraps of Philosophy and Criticism", The New-England Magazine, September 9, 1835
Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.
FEDERICO FELLINI
I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon
Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognised for some time.
SAMUEL BUTLER
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
SAUL BELLOW
attributed, Something About the Author
I don't know anything about inspiration because I don't know what inspiration is; I've heard about it, but I never saw it.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners -- I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know."
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
Nobel lecture, December 7, 1996
Work sometimes comes from inspiration, but more often inspiration comes from work.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus. Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.
HELEN HANSON
"For Writers", July 14, 2010
Inspiration is a trick that poets have invented to give themselves importance.
JEAN ANOUILH
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Diary
You have to realise that a lot of the time, you're going to be writing without inspiration. The trick is to write just as well without it as with. Of course, you write less readily and fluently without it; but the interesting thing is to look at the private journals and letters of great writers and see how much of the time they just had to do without inspiration.
PHILIP PULLMAN
"Q&As", official website
Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
JACK LONDON
"Getting Into Print", The Editor, 1903
I've described my usual writing process as scrambling from peak to peak on inspiration through foggy valleys of despised logic.
LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
Young Miles