Creativity and Inspiration

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

But I have long thought that if you knew a column of advertisements by heart, you could achieve unexpected felicities with them. You can get a happy quotation anywhere if you have the eye.

 

[ 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.

 

Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

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

Any new formula which suddenly emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of thought; it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance among the recognized growths of our intellect.

Talent is often to be envied, and genius very commonly to be pitied. It stands twice the chance of the other of dying in a hospital, in jail, in debt, in bad repute.

A person of genius should marry a person of character. Genius does not herd with genius.

Talent is a very common family trait; genius belongs rather to individuals—just as you find one giant or one dwarf in a family, but rarely a whole brood of either.

Draw a crazy picture, Write a nutty poem, Sing a mumble-gamble song, and Whistle through your comb.

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

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

Genius is nothing but continued attention.

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

A great artist is always before his time or behind it.

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

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.

 

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.

To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.

O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

 

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

 

There are works which wait, and which one does not understand for a long time; the reason is that they bring answers to questions which have not yet been raised; for the question often arrives a terribly long time after the answer.

I have put my genius into my life; I have put only my talent into my works.