Muse Quotes - Page 10

• The art of writing is mysterious; the opinions we hold are ephemeral , and I prefer the Platonic idea of the Muse to that of Poe, who reasoned, or feigned to reason, that the writing of a poem is an act of the intelligence. It never fails to amaze me that the classics hold a romantic theory of poetry, and a romantic poet a classical theory.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Art, Writing, Ideas

  Jorge Luis Borges (1978). “Doctor Brodie's Report”, Plume Books

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• Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public.

  George Santayana

  Long, Poetry, Ancient

  George Santayana, Marianne S. Wokeck, Martin A. Coleman, James Gouinlock (2015). “The Life of Reason Or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Art, Volume VII, Book Four”, p.58, MIT Press

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• Sitting around and waiting for your muse is not the best choice.

  Kristin Hannah

  Choices, Waiting, Sitting

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• We live in an age of science and of abundance. The care and reverence for books as such, proper to an age when no book was duplicated until someone took the pains to copy it out by hand, is obviously no longer suited to ’the needs of society’, or to the conservation of learning. The weeder is supremely needed if the Garden of the Muses is to persist as a garden.

  Ezra Pound

  Pain, Book, Garden

  Ezra Pound, Michael Dirda (2010). “ABC of Reading”, p.17, New Directions Publishing

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• How sublime Upon a time-blanch’d cliff to muse, and, while The eagle glories in a sea of air, To mingle with the scene around! - Survey The sun-warm heaven.

  Robert Montgomery

  Nature, Air, Eagles

  Robert Montgomery (1829). “A universal prayer ; Death ; A vision of heaven ; and A vision of hell”, p.142

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• The muse holds no appointments. You can never call on it. I don't understand people who get up at 9 o'clock in the morning, put on the coffee and sit down to write.

  Glen Hansard

  Morning, Coffee, Writing

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• At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance-that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is to be-curiosity-to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got it or not.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Thinking, Men

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• I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.

  Boethius

  Music, Song, Real

  Boethius (2012). “The Consolation of Philosophy”, p.1, Courier Corporation

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• I don't know if you actually get something out of writing poetry. I think poetry is an autonomous muse that decides to come and sit on your couch.

  Alice Walker

  Writing, Thinking, Couches

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• Let my muse
  Fail of thy former helps, and only use
  Her inadulterate strength. What's done by me
  Hereafter shall smell of the lamp, not thee.

  Robert Herrick

  Wine, Smell, Poetry

  1648 'His Fare-well to Sack'.

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• All literature up to today is sexist. The Muses never sang to the poets about liberated women. It's the same old chanson from the Bible and Homer through Joyce and Proust.

  Allan Bloom

  Men, Literature, Today

  Allan Bloom (2008). “Closing of the American Mind”, p.65, Simon and Schuster

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• You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf... You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired – it’s hard work.

  Tom Clancy

  Hard Work, Writing, Kissing

  "Tom Clancy on Writing The Hunt for Red October". www.amc.com.

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• I am a big advocate for having an open discussion about team norms and preferences. At The Muse, some of us like to start working at 7:30 A.M. Others focus best from 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. Create a culture where it's acceptable not to be working when someone else is working.

  Kathryn Minshew

  Team, Focus, Culture

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• Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a muse' d rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy!

  John Keats

  Art, Time, Pain

  Ode to Nightingale St. 6 (1820)

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• There's a phrase, "sitzfleisch", which means just plain sitting on your ass and getting it done. Just showing up for work. My uncle Raphael was a painter, and he used to say, "If the muse is late for work, start without her". You have to be there. You have to be there, and do it, and grind it out, even when it is grinding and you know you're probably going to rewrite all this tomorrow.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Uncles, Writing, Mean

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• Some people have human muses - mine is a city. I feel a startling ambivalence towards London, but for better or worse my work has come utterly to depend upon it.

  Will Self

  Cities, People, London

  "In the beginning" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. June 16, 2007.

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• As we've grown 'The Daily Muse' and met contacts who want to collaborate with us, knowing who does what has helped us be clear on who we want our partners to connect with - and makes us look buttoned up, too. SEO firm? Talk to our COO. An editor from the 'Huffington Post?' Meet our Editor-in-Chief.

  Kathryn Minshew

  Editors, Knowing, Doe

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• For almost the first year of The Muse's life, I would do 5 to 8 networking events a week. And I don't necessarily think that's the right path for everyone, but I realized that as an entrepreneur, one of my strengths was finding the right people who could help us. I didn't come into startups with any network.

  Kathryn Minshew

  Thinking, Years, People

  "Kathryn Minshew: Helping Women Find Their Muse". Interview with Nusha Balyan, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 18, 2013.

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• Sixties folk rock was my original muse and the folk audience-people who listen to music off the beaten track-fostered my career. I definitely don't want to abandon the genre but I also need to make sure I'm Dar Williams first.

  Dar Williams

  Careers, Rocks, People

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• Discipline is what makes a writer. If writing was like lifting weights, then I'd look like Mr. Universe. Write every day. Give the Muse a chance to get to know you.

  Tony D'Souza

  Writing, Lifting Weights, Giving

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• The muse of music isn't just from Greek mythology, but living in people like the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Anita Baker, Aretha Franklin.

  Ernie Isley

  People, Greek, Bakers

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• What happens when a female writer invokes a female muse? Does something else happen? With Sappho's figures of desire, we have a different lesbian energy.

  Shirley Geok-lin Lim

  Desire, Energy, Female Writers

  "Walking with Her Muse: An Interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim". Contemporary Women's Writing, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 July 2014, Pages 123 - 135, academic.oup.com. June 22, 2013.

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• [My muse] feels nostalgic for Japan, and, perhaps strangely, for the pioneer days of America.

  Quentin S. Crisp

  Japan, America, Pioneers

  Source: www.teemingbrain.com

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• When you're a female poet, would you, therefore, invoke a male muse? When nuns get consecrated into their vocations, they become brides of Christ. Christ is the bridegroom. In these symbolic actions, rather than in physical actions, where a male reaches sexuality or participates in intimate exchanges, if one uses a different term - there's often a heterosexual figuring that takes place. The male poet invokes a beautiful female muse. The virginal nun consecrated invokes the male bridegroom, Christ.

  Shirley Geok-lin Lim

  Beautiful, Males, Female

  "Walking with Her Muse: An Interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim". Contemporary Women's Writing, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 July 2014, Pages 123 - 135, academic.oup.com. June 22, 2013.

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• When I write, I put aside the heterosexual world to admit a muse that is a woman-loving-woman female.

  Shirley Geok-lin Lim

  Writing, Female, World

  "Walking with Her Muse: An Interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim". Contemporary Women's Writing, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 July 2014, Pages 123 - 135, academic.oup.com. June 22, 2013.

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