Inspiration For Writing Quotes

My inspiration for writing music is like Don McLean did when he did "American Pie" or "Vincent". Lorraine Hansberry with "A Raisin in the Sun". Like Shakespeare when he does his thing, like deep stories, raw human needs.

I'm trying to think of a good analogy. It's like, you've got the Vietnam War, and because you had reporters showing us pictures of the war at home, that's what made the war end, or that shit would have lasted longer. If no one knew what was going on we would have thought they were just dying valiantly in some beautiful way. But because we saw the horror, that's what made us stop the war.

So I thought, that's what I'm going to do as an artist, as a rapper. I'm gonna show the most graphic details of what I see in my community and hopefully they'll stop it quick.

I've seen all of that-- the crack babies, what we had to go through, losing everything, being poor, and getting beat down. All of that. Being the person I am, I said no no no no. I'm changing this. ~ Tupac Shakur

Before, I thought we could write about life only when we had recovered from our wounds; when we were able to touch old sores with a pen and not revive the pain; when we could look back free from nostalgia, madness, and a sense of grievance.
But is this really possible? We are never completely cut off from our memory. Recollections provides the inspiration for writing, the stimulus for painting, and for some, the motivation even for death. ~ Ahlam Mosteghanemi

To me, obstacles in life build character. You have to be able to overcome adversity in order to succeed and appreciate the simple things life has to offer ... that's where most of my inspiration for writing and singing comes from. ~ Elliott Yamin

My inspiration for writing is all the wonderful books that I read as a child and that I still read. I think that for those of us who write, when we find a wonderful book written by someone else, we don't really get jealous, we get inspired, and that's kind of the mark of what a good writer is. ~ Patricia MacLachlan

Authors can alter your life. ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive

Love may be an inexhaustible well of inspiration for writing loads of letters until the wind of unresponsiveness blows frostiness into the fold of expectations.( "Poste restante" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

I know a lot of people don't listen to music when they're writing because it distracts them, but for me it's almost a way to get into the self-hypnotic state that I need to be in to write. ~ Dan Chaon

I've been acting for so long it's more like - I won't say easy, exactly, but there's not the same angst with writing that comes about with acting. Writing - particularly when you're writing yourself, when it's you, when it's your life, you really can't hide. ~ Molly Ringwald

I think that my first impulse arises from a hypersensitivity or allergy. It seems to me that language is always used in a random, approximate, careless manner, and this distresses me unbearably. Please don't think that my reaction is the result of intolerance towards my neighbor: the worst discomfort of all comes from hearing myself speak. That's why I try to talk as little as possible. If I prefer writing, it is because I can revise each sentence until I reach the point where - if not exactly satisfied with my words - I am able at least to eliminate those reasons for dissatisfaction that I can put a finger on. Literature - and I mean the literature that matches up to those requirements - is the promised land in which language becomes what it really ought to be. ~ Italo Calvino

I sit around for ages waiting for inspiration. Then when I get an idea, I want to go with it and get something as quickly as possible. It's like catching a fly in a bottle. I'll play with drums for a bit, then the piano for a bit, play the guitar. ~ Jamie Cullum

There is no selfless righteousness in social media . People say or do good things , but having bad motives in them. They only sympathize and support the one with most likes. They do things for rating, acknowledgement and fame. They don't do or say things because they care. That is why those who have few friends or followers will never have a say and their problems will never be known. They wont even get the platform to be supported in what they do. Their voices wont be heard because they are seen as unimportant and not interesting enough. ~ De Philosopher DJ Kyos

For me, writing is exploration; and most of the time, I'm surprised where the journey takes me. ~ Jack Dann

I have no sympathy whatever with writing lists of the One Hundred Best Books, or the Five-Foot Library. It is all right for a man to amuse himself by composing a list of a hundred very good books; and if he is to go off for a year or so where he cannot get many books, it is an excellent thing to choose a five-foot library of particular books which in that particular year and on that particular trip he would like to read. But there is no such thing as a hundred books that are best for all men, or for the majority of men, or for one man at all times; and there is no such thing as a five-foot library which will satisfy the needs of even one particular man on different occasions extending over a number of years. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I've been in a long and happy relationship for 22 years and it's never inspired me to write anything. It's too good - nothing to say. Problems, conflict, that's what makes for good stories. ~ Emma Donoghue

Sold my soul to the devil / for nice penmanship. / Now I write real pretty / but I'm starting to regret it. ~ Dan Mangan

When I'm writing, which is 8-9 months out of the year, I'm in a concerted writing pace, where I work 5 days a week for at least a few hours a day, maybe a little bit more. But I won't work for more than 2 hours at a time. I'll work for a couple hours and take a break. ~ Amy Ray

The poet dreams of the mountain
Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts.
I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly, taking
The rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleeping
Under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
That we have smothered for years now, a century at least.
I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all,
And peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.
All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall. ~ Mary Oliver

She knew the intensity of adolescence, and knew no cure for it except growing up. And then one has age and experience, and mourns the loss of intensity. Maybe it's why musicians and mathmaticians are said to peak young-poetry needs the fire of an unbounded universe. ~ Sara Paretsky

Everything that a painter did or that a writer wrote was a part of his training and preparation for what he was to do. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The more I wrote, the more I became a human being. The writing may have seemed monstrous (to some) for it was a violation, but I became a more human individual because of it. I was getting the poison out of my system. ~ Henry Miller

I've also been writing for other artists, producing other artists, doing some country stuff. Those lyrics I tend to leave more universal. ~ Meredith Brooks

One of the greatest things I've ever seen happen was the morning I opened the newspaper and it said that some very powerful government officials had decided to change the name of "french fries" to "freedoom fries" and "french toast" to "freedom toast". It was impressive. I wanted to write a letter to them just to thank them, just for proving globally that they were absolute imbeciles. ~ Johnny Depp

I've come back for you, my love, my life. Let me look at you, keep you, never let go of you. ~ Sandra Byrd

Oh, I just tend to believe in things when I'm writing them. For instance, when I was writing 'Doctor Dee,' I believed in magic. And when I wrote 'Hawksmoor' I believed in psychic geography. But as soon as I type the last full stop, I'm back to being a complete blank again. ~ Peter Ackroyd

As you get older you're told to be sensible, but it's important for writing if you're a comic that you're able to still access that childlike thing. ~ Tim Vine

I have been writing fairy tales for as long as I can remember. Not much has changed in terms of my natural attraction to the narrative techniques of fairy tales. My appreciation of them in the traditional stories has deepened, especially of flat and unadorned language, intuitive logic, abstraction, and everyday magic. ~ Kate Bernheimer

Never be boring, not for one scene, paragraph, sentence, or word. ~ James V. Smith Jr.

I'm not unfamiliar with music, and I really do write music. I've gotten a talent for it. I don't have the technical skills, but I do plan to learn. ~ Anthony Hopkins

As an economics undergraduate, I also worked on a part-time basis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a company that was advising customers about portfolio decisions, writing reports. ~ Merton Miller

This idea comes to you, you can see it, but to accomplish it you need what I call a "setup." For example, you may need a working shop or a working painting studio. You may beed a working music studio. Or a computer room where you can write something. It's crucial to have a setup, so that, at any given moment, when you get an idea, you have the place and the tools to make it happen. If you don't have a setup, there are many times when you get the inspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put it together. And the idea just sits there and festers. Overtime, it will go away. You didn't filfill it
and that's just a heartache. ~ David Lynch

I've been writing for myself since I was a teenager - I got into top-lining for some other artists/producers, but the focus was always on my own stuff. ~ LIZ

Reading the book now means that one can, if one wants, play Fantasy Literature
match writers off against each other and see who won over the long haul. Faulkner or Henry Green? I reckon the surprise champ was P.G. Wodehouse, as elegant and resourceful a prose stylist as anyone held up for our inspection here ... he has turned out to be as enduring as anyone apart from Orwell. Jokes, you see. People do like jokes.
(Hornby's thoughts after reading "Enemies of Promise" by Cyril Connolly) ~ Nick Hornby

Driving down deserted early morning roads. Round and round. Round downtown. Through naked streets. Lips pursed on two litre bottles of beer, but pursuing the lips of freedom's night. Swapping cars. Winding up at karaoke bars or Bolsi- the best place in town. For the food. For the folk. For the service. For the crema de papaya. And for that late night dawn's whiskey coffee. ~ Harry Whitewolf

Here I've been telling him things in my head for weeks, writing long, frenzied missives to him I know I'll never send, and now that I have him less than two feet away, I'm struck dumb.
Fantastic. ~ Jody Gehrman

For inspiration, I would turn again and again to Lieutenant Jason "Jay" Redman, a Navy SEAL who had been shot seven times and had undergone nearly two dozen surgeries. He had placed a hand-drawn sign on the door to his room at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It read: ATTENTION. To all who enter here. If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, go elsewhere. The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere. From: The Management. ~ Robert M. Gates

Suppressed I Rise is for anyone interested in a very personal, human view of the history of World War II. A mother's attempt to protect and raise her two young daughters in hostile NAZI Germany challenges her sensibilities and resourcefulness. ~ Hank Bracker

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States ... ~ George Orwell

I first went to India because of my interest in yoga, hoping to go to the Iyengar Centre in Pune for a while. That didn't work out, but I ended up on a beach in Goa, writing. ~ Damon Galgut

It's not so much that I write well, I just don't write badly very often and that passes for good on television. ~ Andy Rooney

The fact is that all the recording science and technology in the world is no substitute for a good song or for real feeling. Music is about feeling and if there isn't any genuine feeling, if the song isn't about anything that anyone gives a damn about, there's nothing you can do. All the technique that exists won't make it any good; it'll just make it technological. All the production values you add won't do anything except make it glossy. ~ David Crosby

The purpose of life is to live for others. The moment you start living for yourself, you die before you time. ~ Chidiebere Prosper Agbugba