Quotes & Sayings About My Inspiration

All my stories take place on the West Coast - not the beach, but smaller inland towns. I feel homesick, and I find inspiration in capturing that. — Adrian Tomine

But your greatest blessing was of another order. In gaining my friendship through your charity - I have never encountered its equal - you have furnished me with a source of inspiration more powerful and more pure that one could find among human things. For nothing among human things is as powerful for maintaining our gaze, applied ever more intensely on God, than friendship with the friends of God. — Simone Weil

Because of my Buddhist practice, I'm never lacking for inspiration. — Duncan Sheik

It's impossible that James Joyce could have mentioned "talk-tapes" in his writing, Asher thought. Someday I'm going to get my article published; I'm going to prove that Finnegan's Wake is an information pool based on computer memory systems that didn't exist until a century after James Joyce's era; that Joyce was plugged into a cosmic consciousness from which he derived the inspiration for his entire corpus of work. I'll be famous forever. — Philip K. Dick

When I told my teachers I wanted to be a writer, alot of them encouraged me to lower my expectations and to be more realistic. So I rode away on my magical, winged horse, spraying faerie dust behind me, and laughing manically as I went. — M.E. Vaughan

The practice of yoga has been an amazing tool to actually unearth where my inspiration lives inside my body and mind and heart. — Rodney Yee

The cruise was the conduit for what would become my third book. While I was traveling and writing for ctnow, women across the United States and from the Caribbean emailed not to ask about my geographic journey but my existential one. "How do you find the courage to travel on your own?" they wondered. "How do you keep from getting lonely? Don't you feel self-conscious eating out alone?" After the first 30 emails like these I thought, There's a book here. It would be eight years before I published Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road. But the inspiration for publication came during the cruise. — Gina Greenlee

I had a cookie business there, with my brother, when we were growing up, called the Chip Yard, and that became the inspiration for the banana stand. My father said that he wanted us to develop a work ethic, so we'd sit there selling cookies, all day. — Mitchell Hurwitz

I've been writing songs and making music since I was probably ten years old ... so my inspirations back then, I don't know - I guess it was something that was innate. I was really shaped to make hip-hop music and love hip hop. — Hoodie Allen

I wished I could paint this ineffable beauty but I had never been artistic. I hadn't even packed a camera, and my phone was out of charge. It didn't matter. I just breathed in the feeling, savouring it. Suddenly I knew that I'd enjoy many more moving moments and visions of beauty, and that they'd sustain me for the rest of my life. — Jane Wilson-Howarth

My question to the atheist is, do you want an atheist world or a peaceful world? And to the believer, do you want a religious world or a peaceful world? Religious orientation doesn't define peace, but the answer here may define one's true nature. — Abhijit Naskar

Not a lot of contemporary fiction is written about brothers and sisters. Salinger's Franny and Zooey was an inspiration for me. In Franny and Zooey, the sister gets in trouble and the brother comes to help her out. But I wanted to make sure that in my novel the sister had more to do than lie around on a sofa muttering, which is what Franny does for two-thirds of Salinger's novel. — K.M. Soehnlein

God keeps me grounded as well as my husband, Keith Douglas, who is such an inspiration to me. He's an author, speaker, and businessman. He's just a great husband and blessing. — Tasha Smith

Money is not my definition of success; inspiring people is the definition of success. — Kanye West

Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling - I don't think it's any of that - it's helpless ... it's absence of control - and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that - I have no use for it whatsoever.
[Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.] — Toni Morrison

Traveling and other cultures provide me with great inspiration, especially unusual people and cultures totally unlike my own. They generate many new ideas for me. — Kansai Yamamoto

With a modest amount of looks and talent and more than a modicum of serendipity, I've managed to stretch my 15 minutes of fame into more than half a century of good fortune. — Robert Vaughn

I inhale slowly, soaking it all in. I step forward and backward, my neck twisting and turning, memorizing every corner. I feel an instant connection to this place. Something about being here grabs me and infatuates me. I begin taking mental pictures of the narrow alleys decorated with rows of artists and vendors. I start imagining myself dining at the sidewalk cafes, sitting there with Chad during the summer, spring, winter, and fall. I get this strong desire to take off my shoes and walk barefooted on the cobblestones as if I have found my new home. — Corey M.P.

With all my heart, I seek to reach the Holy Land. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It took until the end of her life for me to cherish each day with my mother the way I naturally did with my brother. At the end, I loved my mother simply, without request to do better in any way, or be more capable in any way. I simply loved that she was there, and she was my mother.
I wish I did that more often in my life. I will do that more often in my life for those who are still here. — Darcy Leech

I have a neighbor who knows 200 types of wine ... I only know two types of wine - red and white. But my neighbor only knows two types of countries - industrialized and developing. And I know 200. — Hans Rosling

So I just had to step up how I was doing it and the moment that I stepped up and the moment I focused all my energy on that is when things started to happen. So there's a direct relationship between my inspiration and my output. — Talib Kweli

Hi, My best inspiration for poetry comes from walking and sharing with friends. Let me know what you think.Diana — Diana Kanecki

My main inspirations are the people around me, heartbreaks, frustration and everything that makes you feel stronger than you should. — Tove Lo

Even in my own time and in my own life, I have witnessed a revolution. — Sandra Day O'Connor

In the rare moments I permitted any stillness, I noted a small fluttering at the pit of my belly, a barely perceptible disturbance. The faint whisper of a word would sound in my head: writing. At first I could not say whether it was heartburn or inspiration. The more I listened, the louder the message became: I needed to write, to express myself through written language not only so that others might hear me but so that I could hear myself. The gods, we are taught, created humankind in their own image. Everyone has an urge to create. Its expression may flow through many channels: through writing, art, or music or through the inventiveness of work or in any number of ways unique to all of us, whether it be cooking, gardening, or the art of social discourse. The point is to honor the urge. To do so is healing for ourselves and for others; not to do so deadens our bodies and our spirits. When I did not write, I suffocated in silence. — Gabor Mate

A lot of things trigger my inspiration. It can be the most banal things. — Manolo Blahnik

My role [as a war correspondent] is to bring a voice to people who are voiceless [and] to shine a light in the darkest corners of the world. — Janine Di Giovanni

My inspiration is European fashion. I'm really into Euro fashion, and I also love rock n' roll. That's the mentality that I like to have when I'm dealing with fashion. — Ciara

The actors are different, although I didn't set out to be different. My inspiration came from people like Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. The genre is what it is. My inspiration was drawn from great movies like 48 Hours, Bad Boys and Rush Hour. — Tracy Morgan

I'm not an insomniac. It's just that my mind is in the best position to catch the weight of all hovering possibilities the moment I lie down. — Joyce Rachelle

I always begin with a source of inspiration that comes from nature. The story comes from my research, volunteering, and meeting the people involved in that story world. I am an intuitive writer and an image, sound, experience can all inspire a scene or a plot twist! — Mary Alice Monroe

Looking back, if I had to live my life over, there are things I would do differently, but the one thing I would not change is my charitable giving. I'm particularly thankful for my father's advice to set goals so high that they can't possibly be achieved during a lifetime and to give help where help is needed most. That inspiration keeps me energized and eager to keep working hard every day on giving back and making the world a better place for generations to come. — Ted Turner

So he could not be hasty or impatient. If he pushed forward impulsively, he would fail to see the signs and omens left by God along his path.
God placed them along my path. He had surprised himself with the thought. Until then, he had considered the omens to be things of this world, Like eating or sleeping, or like seeking love or finding a job. he had never thought of them in terms of a language used by God to indicate what he should do. — Paulo Coelho

Honestly...this is why I write.
I write to get the happy ending I sometimes feel is eluding me.
I write for my sanity. — Debora Dennis

My experience from 20 years of Africa is that the seemingly impossible is possible. — Hans Rosling

Imagination Equals Inspiration (My own Inspirational Quote) — Annabel Sheila

Dear 2016,

If I has any defeats in your term, I am glad they were on my terms!

Best,
The Defeated Winner — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

Because of my schooling, my fate would always be a little different from my friends. — Daoud Hari

I notice inspiration when it comes by. I don't sit down at my desk and try to write. — Gary Panter

I take a lot of inspiration from the nature of the universe and visualize my work as a direct or indirect reflection of life, inside and around us. — Jeet Aulakh

Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy. — Mary Faustina Kowalska

My favorite thing is being able to follow my inspiration, and the freedom of being a writer is hard to beat. — Mike White

The inspiration for the book came after a visitation from a spiritual being that materialized before me on two consecutive nights. Although I crumpled into unconsciousness at the outset of each encounter and consciously remembered hearing only an initial word or two from the entity, I awakened on the dawn after the second visit with the ideas for The Divine Fire bubbling in my brain. — Brad Steiger

My inspiration comes from the message Duke Ellington gave - you are unique, be yourself, put out that thing that is you, then use your work ethic and produce great music. — Kenny Burrell

Mostly, in song writing, my experience is that there isn't so much inspiration as hard work. You sit there for hours, days and weeks with a guitar and piano until something good comes. But the urge to write is something you have to have. A conviction, an ambition to write and never stop until you think, 'This is the best I can do.' — Bjorn Ulvaeus

The greatest possessions I leave for my children are books. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I have occupied this idle, empty winter with writing a story. It has been written to please myself, without thought of my own vanity or modesty, without regard for other people's feelings, without considering whether I shock or hurt the living, without scrupling to speak of the dead.

The world, I know, is changing. I am not indifferent to the revolution that has caught us in its mighty skirts, to the enormity of the flood that is threatening to submerge us. But what could I do? In the welter of the surrounding storm, I have taken refuge for a moment on this little raft, constructed with the salvage of my memory. I have tried to steer it into that calm haven of art in which I still believe. I have tried to avoid some of the rocks and sandbanks that guard its entrance.

[from the introduction] — Dorothy Bussy

You always draw inspiration from your family or your parents if they've proven to be inspirational. My mother is someone who's always been inspirational to me. — Dustin Clare

I definitely take after my dad, looks-wise. But my mum is my greatest inspiration. All the women in my family are amazing. They're hilarious. I love funny people. — Shari Sebbens

Barbra Streisand has always been an inspiration for me. I admire Jennifer Lopez because she's been against all the odds, and she's made such a name for herself, and she can put her name on anything and it sells, and I admire that about her, but Barbara Streisand and Woody Allen are my favorites. — Lauren London

For this will cure him that is sick, and rouse him that is in dumps; one that has loved, it will remember of it; one that has not, it will instruct. For there was never any yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall there be any, never so long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But help me that God to write the passions of others; and while I write, keep me in my own right wits. — Longus

The inspiration was this great group of 40 or 50 relatives, sometimes for Thanksgiving or Passover or something and my brothers would just go up and make them laugh. — Billy Crystal

It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they come from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them
with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them ... — Eudora Welty

As one boy said, 'I was thinking all these horrible thoughts about my parents when suddenly it hit me-if they're all that bad, how come I'm so wonderful' — Mark Twain

Hold to the idea, "I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act," and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself. — Swami Vivekananda

I think my mom is the inspiration of me wanting to do film and TV and be an actor because she loved film so much. She loved, like, horror films and action films, so growing up, she loved watching all the Charles Bronson films and all the westerns. — Rick Gonzalez

It is within my power either to serve God or not to serve Him. Serving Him, I add to my own good and the good of the whole world. Not serving Him, I forfeit my own good and deprive the world of that good, which was in my power to create. — Leo Tolstoy

My great inspiration has always been Studs Terkel, who is a wonderful American oral historian. He was a radio DJ at first, interviewed a lot of jazz musicians, and at some point started to interview Americans about work. — Hans Ulrich Obrist

My inspirations don't come from outer space, they just come to me. I have no idea why they come when they do. — Joe Satriani

But that initial, comet-blazing-across-the-sky, Big Idea is only the beginning. Each book is composed of a mosaic of thousands of little ideas, ideas that invariably come to me at two in the morning when my alarm is set for seven. — Lauren Willig

It's only sixteen ninety-five," I say with a flutter of my lashes.
"You're serious."
I prop my hands on my waist and stick out a hip, striking a pose worthy of a supermodel. "Look at me. Don't I look serious?"
She collapses into the chair outside the dressing room in a fit of giggles so cute they make my insides fizz. "No! You must be stopped," she says.
"Why?" I strut down an aisle of yellowed lingerie, swiveling my hips, batting bras with flicks of my fingers. "I will be the king of the disco. I will be - " I spin and strike another pose. "An inspiration."
She sniffs and swipes at her eyes. "The real Dylan would die before he'd be seen in public in something like that."
"The real Dylan is boring." I brace my hands on the arms of her chair and lean down until our faces are a whisper apart. "And he's not one fourth the kisser I am."
"Is that right?" Her lips quirk.
"You know it is."
Her smile melts, and her breath comes faster. "Yeah. I do. — Stacey Jay

She's my teacher, my adviser, my greatest inspiration. — Whitney Houston

My dad's music was a great inspiration to me. — Julian Lennon

My friends are a huge part of my inspiration. — Waris Ahluwalia

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. — Terry Tempest Williams

A gentleman, my Lord Father, is such whether he is on earth or on the treetops — Italo Calvino

When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. Filling pages and people with inspiration. When my thoughts don't want to rest on a page, we argue. We argue that one merely is ready just too comfortable playing in The Nile [denial] river. So we compromise. We grow,
water metaphors
and plant simile trees
of golden-almond
manifested love dreams.
Then at that moment, we forgot what we were arguing about.
Beauty can do that for you.
That's the beauty of writing. — Antonia Perdu

When I am having my picture taken, I channel Beyonce. In the studio, my inspiration is Adele. — Ella Henderson

The only character I ever remember actually creating in a flash of inspiration was George Liquor. God planted that in my head in an instant. — John Kricfalusi

It may sound strange, but I get the inspiration for most of my Dreams while I'm sleeping. — Mark W. Boyer

All the truly great stand-ups say, 'I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work.' To me, in the end, the surest thing is work. — Patton Oswalt

My mother was a great inspiration to me to always do my best. My father has always been my mentor and friend. They taught me the basic principle that guides most all that I do: faith, focus, finish. — Larry Fitzgerald

I'm like our fearless leader [Jesus]. Where do I get my inspiration? I don't know. I just make fun of everything. — Daniel Tosh

When I use people I know, all of my instincts seem to go dead, and if I'm getting anywhere near myself then I can't do it. It's actually a real weakness! I hate writing personal essays, I don't think I'm especially good at it. I like just encountering [my characters], discovering them. I love the escape of just being surrounded by all these people who are nothing like people I know. But I don't find it hard to be in the middle of a different life, with a different set of habits and way of thinking and talking. That seems to come easily to me. — Jennifer Egan

When my cell phone rang, I'd just finished cutting up my marriage mattress. — Claire Cook

I do not think there is a person in this world who has been a more ardent admirer of him than I have been. His life and work have been an inspiration to the whole earth, shedding light in the dark places which so sadly needed light. His memory calls forth my most sincere homage, love, and esteem.

{Burbank on the great Robert Ingersoll, whom he admired so much that he requested Ingersoll's eulogy for his brother, Ebon Ingersoll, to be read at his own funeral} — Luther Burbank

My mind and fingers have worked like the damned. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them. I devour them with fury. — Franz Liszt

I know that my companions from the moment of birth were heaven's choicest souls. I grew side by side with them, in fact all the education and inspiration came over them. — Victoria Woodhull

Write down everything you can think of, no matter how stupid it seems. I always write down my thoughts throughout the day. Sometimes good things come out of it, and I'll find an idea to develop into a song, so my best advice is to try and draw inspiration from everyday things. — Daya

The coincidences turn up down to the smallest details. There is, for instance, a character who has covered the mirrors with handkerchiefs. Apparently this happens somewhere in Ulysses, too. And they said, Ah! This is where he got that. Where I got it was when I was in a hotel in Panama and I had washed my handkerchiefs and spread them on the windows and the mirrors to dry - they almost look pressed when they're peeled away that way - a Panamanian friend came in and said, "All the mirrors are covered. Who's dead? What's happened?" I said, "No, I'm just drying my handkerchiefs." Then I found the same incident in McTeague in what? 1903 or 1905, whenever McTeague was written. This always strikes me as dangerous - finding "sources. — William Gaddis

Abraham Maslow became a towering figure in my life. He was the inspiration for me to look at psychology from a 180-degree-turnabout position. Rather than studying what was weak, infirm, or limited in clients and make an assessment based on overcoming ailments, I began looking for the highest qualities of self-actualization and encouraging clients - and ultimately readers and listeners - to seek their own innate greatness and aspire to these pinnacles. I reasoned that if some among us could be self-actualized, then so could I and anyone else who understood that it was possible. This became a major focus of my professional life and the compass I set for myself to live the principles that Maslow delineated in his writing. — Wayne W. Dyer

Indeed, it has affirmed my belief that our purpose as spiritual beings is to follow our bliss, seek our passions, and live our lives as inspirations to each other. — Aron Ralston

But perhaps there is another, more personal reason for my disagreement with Ramin: I cannot imagine myself feeling at home in a place that is indifferent to what has become my true home, a land with no borders and few restrictions, which I have taken to calling "the Republic of Imagination." I think of it as Nabokov's "somehow, somewhere" or Alice's backyard, a world that runs parallel to the real one, whose occupants need no passport or documentation. The only requirements for entry are an open mind, a restless desire to know and an indefinable urge to escape the mundane. — Azar Nafisi

I write because if I don't let it out of my system, I will die with guilt. — Shahla Khan

Throughout my career, as both a physician and a scientist, I have drawn inspiration from Merck's unwavering commitment to scientific excellence. Over time, this commitment has brought forth an unparalleled number of breakthrough medicines and vaccines that improve the lives of patients around the world. — Roger M. Perlmutter

I find so much inspiration and healing from Mother Earth. Through my connection with Nature my soul is nurtured. — Jodi Sky Rogers

My inspiration comes from the common man and nature. — Kailash Kher

My heart lies in music and acting, however, my inspiration comes from adrenaline rush I get from sports ... and life. — Alexander Ludwig

That was the first time I've drawn anything for seven years. I feel like I had been held underwater, and someone finally reached down and pulled my head up so I could breathe. — Mick Ebeling

I was brought up on choirs and brass bands. They formed the music of my childhood. When I heard the Treorchy Male Choir at the Royal Variety Performance it brought back such happy memories. You have your own eminent place in the history of British music. You stand for excellence in a great tradition and your work for charity is both an example and an inspiration. — Michael Parkinson

One might say my life has been tragic. Yet, as I sat in pain in the hospital I raised my tired hands toward the sky, palms facing in, fingers spread, and I gave thanks. — Abeba Habtu

I didn't know the first thing about the people around me, but that didn't matter: I was in a new world; and I had the feelings that at last I had put my finger on the secret of freedom. — Simone De Beauvoir

It makes me feel like a brother, or a son that people still care for me ... that I have so many fans, who write to me and share with me that I am loved and have been an inspiration. My Dear Fans This I Promise I Will Never Forget. One Love! — Asafa Powell

My inspiration is my life, what I see happening around me. It can be history and, quite often, plain traditional fairy tales. But I never adapt; I nourish myself with old stories, and then create my own tales. — Michel Ocelot

The doctrine of the atonement is to my mind one of the surest proofs of the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The first time I saw a mermaid in my dream, and she looked so real...THAT.'s fishy!! — Ana Claudia Antunes

Inspiration will not come by sticking my head in the pantry yet again. — Michelle Vernal

I am Happy. I love colorful and cute stuffs. Whole my life is all about being happy and to stay positive in my beliefs. I love to inspire people and let them know more about themselves. — Diana Rose Morcilla

Each time I write, I reaffirm my soul. — Rob Bignell, Editor