Quotes & Sayings About An Artist's Muse

But the fact is, she [the muse] won't be summoned. She alights when it damn well pleases her. She falls in love with one artist, then deserts him for another. She's a real bitch! — Erica Jong

A successful artist is inspired by his muse, and his muse is inspired by the payment of a commission. — Robert Breault

Haven't you ever heard of an artist's muse?" the barman asked. "They all seem to either have one or want one. Me, all I want is peace and quiet. — Louise Penny

I didn't have time to be anyone's muse ... I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist. — Leonora Carrington

For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue - that I had to do the job myself. — Anais Nin

Inspiration comes unawares, from unaccountable sources that have nothing to do with planning or intelligence. Let it cool ever so slightly, and you are left, pen or brush in hand, with no inspiration at all. Gifted people need not, therefore, make a song and dance about being or supposing themselves superior. They simply happened to be born with that fortunate, subconscious equipment of theirs, and the mystery exists independently of intelligence or ambition. — Maurice Chevalier

The artist-muse relationship is romantic and passionate, and complex, and I would imagine that would be a hard relationship to have if you're not with the person. It requires so much of each other, you have to be in love with each other. — Kate Bosworth

When I once said I would rather be married to an artist than be one, I was really being a coward. I was really dropping out. I was saying that I would help the artist but I was not going to try to be one. There was nothing wonderful or sacrificial about that. The muse is a very suspect character, because I simply was refusing to take the responsibility of being an artist myself. So I had decided I would be the helper, the assistant; it was really much easier. So when women complain about being forced into that role, I have my doubts. Because I played that role too. After a while I realized Miller wasn't going to write the book I wanted to write, and that Durrell wasn't going to write the book I wanted to write. It was up to me. — Anais Nin

By Blake's model, as I understand it, it's as though the Fifth Symphony existed already in that higher sphere, before Beethoven sat down and played dah-dah-dah-DUM. The catch was this: The work existed only as potential - without a body, so to speak. It wasn't music yet. You couldn't play it. You couldn't hear it. It needed someone. It needed a corporeal being, a human, an artist (or more precisely a genius, in the Latin sense of "soul" or "animating spirit") to bring it into being on this material plane. So the Muse whispered in Beethoven's ear. Maybe she hummed a few bars into a million other ears. But no one else heard her. Only Beethoven got it. He brought it forth. He made the Fifth Symphony a "creation of time," which "eternity" could be "in love with. — Steven Pressfield

No muse shoots darts of insight into the unsuspecting artist. — Eric Maisel

A muse can be a mirror: a reflection of the artist's desires, anxieties, dreams and needs. — Vince Aletti

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

I don't need a Hollywood girl. They're crazy. If you're with an actress, you don't know who you're going to come home to every day. But I wouldn't mind a relationship with the right girl. Every artist needs a muse. — JC Chasez

If you stay open to the wisdom of your Muse, you may discover you're a playwright, a sculptor, a kitchen-table comedian, a beacon of creative kindness, or a person who chooses grace over ego and contentment over greed.
And in that choice you will create an world of joy within yourself, you'll truly be an artist of being alive. — Jill Badonsky

She was in awe of all his work. 'How do you do it?" she asked.
He smiled and said, 'By loving you. — Kamand Kojouri

Gilbert and George said: "But don't you see? That's how Bacon is. He is absolutely right to behave as he wants." Not as he wants. As he has to behave. An artist must be open to the muse. The greater the artist, the more he is open to "cosmic currents." He has to behave as he does. If he has "the courage to be an artist," he is committed to behave as the mood possesses him. "That's the man who booed Princess Margaret!" - the peasantry shrink back from his sulfurous glow. — William S. Burroughs

I love you, Lucien, but I am a muse, you are an artist, I am not here to make you comfortable. — Christopher Moore

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

Ocular infidelity is unfortunately rampant in this so called artist's world. — Muse

Arts without a spiritual relative is like frying buns with water. — Michael Bassey Johnson

You know, it's the same thing as the question of free will and destiny, the question of creativity - you, the artist, you're not the puppet of the piano, you're not the puppet of the muse, but you're not its master, either. It's a relationship, it's a conversation, and all it wants is to be treated with respect and dignity - and it will return ten thousand times over. — Elizabeth Gilbert

While the concept of the muse is noteworthy, the development of the muse has changed substantially in today's online world. The tables have practically turned as the artist who is responsible for creating music in today's world is now being the muse to others. They have been responsible for the creation of "fan art," a style of performance where people create new forms of media based off of existing creations.
It was originally that the muse was what prompted the artist to create something new. Today it has changed to where the artist is the muse to others in society. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

I found no muse on Hyperion during those first years. For many, the expansion of distance because of limited transportation - EMVs were unreliable, skimmers scarce - and the contraction of artificial consciousness due to absence of datasphere, no access to the All Thing, and only one fatline transmitter - all led to a renewal of creative energies, a new realization of what it meant to be human and an artist. Or so I heard. No muse appeared. My verse continued to be technically proficient and dead as Huck Finn's cat. I decided to kill myself. — Dan Simmons

Every so often every artist feels, 'I'll never paint again. The muse has gone out the window.' In 1985, I hardly painted at all for three months, and it was agonizing. I looked at reproductions. I stared at Matisse. I stared at the Old Masters. I stared at the Quattrocento. And I thought to myself - Don't push it! If you try too hard to get at something, you almost push it away. — Helen Frankenthaler

That's what writers and artists and creators do, boy. Listen to the Void and try to hear dead folks' thoughts. Feel their pain. The pain of living folks too. Finding a muse is just an artist or holy man's way of getting a foot in the Void Which Binds' front door. Aenea knew that. You should have too. — Dan Simmons