Creativity and Inspiration

Genius is nothing but continued attention.

Inventors and men of genius have almost always been regarded as fools at the beginning (and very often at the end) of their careers.

You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age; They were not such a plague when I was young; What else have I to spur me into song?

The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

In the creative process there is the father, the author of the play; the mother, the actor pregnant with the part; and the child, the role to be born.

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling.

How do I know what I have to say until I see what I have said? E. M.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations is really an uncreative mind.

The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imaginations, we learned to talk.

[ Advice to writers :] First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. . . . Habit is persistence in practice.

 

Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart— you can’t plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

Genius is eternal patience.

For me, a poet is someone who is “in contact.” Someone through whom a current is passing.

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

Doing easily what others find difficult is talent doing what is impossible for talent is genius.

I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing.

 

What about the creative state? In it a man is taken out of himself. He lets down as it were a bucket into his subconscious and draws up something which is normally beyond his reach.

I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.