Muse Quotes - Page 8

• The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that creativity will hit you all at once and the muse will carry you to the end of the book on feather wings while Foster the People plays gently in the background. Storytelling is work. Pleasurable work, usually, but it is work.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Mistake, Book, Creativity

  "How to Win the 2012 Fiction Contest!" by Laura Rosenfeld, www.seventeen.com. September 1, 2011.

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• For, whom the Muses smile upon,
  And touch with soft persuasion,
  His words like a storm-wind can bring
  Terror and beauty on their wing;
  In his every syllable
  Lurketh nature veritable.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wind, Wings, Poetry

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2007). “Poems”, p.137, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The muse is blind as Cupid and skittish as Diana.

  Mason Cooley

  Inspirational, Blind, Cupid

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• I am tired of loving a foreign muse.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Tired, Homesickness

  1927 'American Names'.

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• Oh! not for the great departed, Who formed our country's laws, And not for the bravest-hearted, Who died in freedom's cause, And not for some living hero To whom all bend the knee, My muse would raise her song of praise - But for the man to be.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Country, Song, Appreciation

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2012). “Leafs On An Idle Breeze - My Inspirational Poems (Annotated Edition)”, p.263, Jazzybee Verlag

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• I wake up in the morning, or the middle of the night when an idea comes through. My songwriting style, basically I just write down information given to me from the muse and how that works for songwriters. Record the muse and the muse delivers.

  Creed Bratton

  Morning, Writing, Night

  Source: www.talive.com

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• We all have our muses. My grandmother and my mother are the people I write for. I'll never have to worry about who buys my work, or who likes it, and who doesn't. The people who I want to be proud of me already are.

  Nikki Giovanni

  Mother, Writing, Worry

  Interview with Nicole Sealey, mosaicmagazine.org. September 6, 2013.

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• I do not know whether I would not like much better to have produced one perfectly formed child by intercourse with the muses than by intercourse with my wife.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Children, Wife, Intercourse

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.293, Stanford University Press

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• My mom was my muse - she would buy me Italian 'Vogue.' I was this little fashion boy.

  Nicola Formichetti

  Mom, Fashion, Italian

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• The richest of all lords is Use,
  And ruddy Health the loftiest Muse.
  Live in the sunshine, swim the sea,
  Drink the wild air's salubrity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Health, Sunshine, Sea

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1859). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: The conduct of life”, p.243

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• In spite of Virtue and the Muse,
  Nemesis will have her dues,
  And all our struggles and our toils
  Tighter wind the giant coils.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Struggle, Fate, Wind

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.212, The Floating Press

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• Homer and Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell and Wordsworth are but the rustling of leaves and crackling of twigs in the forest, and there is not yet the sound of any bird. The Muse has never lifted up her voice to sing.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Voice, Bird, Sound

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.233, Delphi Classics

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• Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;--and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Art, Angel

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.378, Library of America

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• But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines, but fragile flowers, like the orchises, commonly described as too delicate for cultivation, which derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of peat. These remind us, that, not only for strength, but for beauty, the poet must, from time to time, travel the logger's path and the Indian's trail, to drink at some new and more bracing fountain of the Muses, far in the recesses of the wilderness.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Flower, Simplicity

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.160

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• With her first Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Rooney Mara gave fashion fans a new Gothic-chic muse.

  Derek Blasberg

  Tattoo, Girl, Fashion

  "Mr. Blasberg's Best Dressed Ladies of 2012" by Derek Blasberg, www.harpersbazaar.com. November 19, 2012.

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• Virtue runs before the muse,
  and defies her skill;
  she is rapt and doth refuse
  to wait a painter's will.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Art, Skills

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1847). “Poems”, p.192

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• [The Muse of our Fiction of the future] will lead you - if you are humble and honest with her - straight into a World of Working Men, crude of speech, swift of action, strong of passion, straight to the heart of a new life.

  Frank Norris

  Strong, Passion, Heart

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• I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night, Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend.

  John Milton

  Dark, Night, Venture

  John Milton (1732). “Milton's Paradise Lost”

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• I imagined myself as Frida to Diego, both muse and maker. I dreamed of meeting an artist to love and support and work with side by side.

  Patti Smith

  Artist, Support, Sides

  Patti Smith (2010). “Just Kids”, p.12, A&C Black

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• When I was from Cupid's passions free, my Muse was mute and wrote no elegy.

  Ovid

  Passion, Cupid, Mute

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• The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter oracles as never to those who do not respect themselves.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, History, Oracles

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.104, Penguin

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• You can think of a painter as a trio - the artist, his talent and his muse, the last two always on the lookout for a new brush man.

  Robert Breault

  Artist, Men, Thinking

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• When a painting problem crops up, don't rush to fix it. You probably already know one way to fix it, but wait for something else to show up... invite the muses to bring you a new solution.

  Carole Katchen

  Patience, Waiting, Way

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• Obey the muse, Liz said. She's a fickle mistress.

  Gayle Forman

  Mistress, Fickle, Liz

  Gayle Forman (2011). “Where She Went”, p.66, Penguin

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• I thought you said that after this many years nothing should embarrass him?" Leigh said with gentle amusement. Lucian grunted. "I guess he's more sensitive than I thought." "I am NOT sensitive," Cale snapped, irritated by the very suggestion. "It's probably his mother's fault," Lucian said, ignoring him. "Martine named him after Caliope, the muse of poetry. Between that and his father dying when he was only fifty, he's probably suffered under Martine's namby-pamby influence.

  Lynsay Sands

  Mother, Father, Years

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