The Best Muse Quotes & Sayings

Today she is the lady of death, which I believe is the best muse to have. — Kit Williams

Wanderess, Wanderess,
weave us a story of seduction and ruse.
Heroic be the Wanderess,
the world be her muse. — Roman Payne

If you schlep a shit job everyday, keep and feed a little secret life
whether it's writing, art, running, music, your thoughts. It's yours. — Don Roff

Similarly the call to growth can be conceptualized as personal (a daimon or genius, an angel or a muse) or as impersonal, like the tides or the transiting of Venus. Either way works, as long as we're comfortable with it. Or if extra-dimensionality doesn't sit well with you in any form, think of it as "talent," programmed into our genes by evolution. The point, for the thesis I'm seeking to put forward, is that there are forces we can call our allies. As Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels. — Steven Pressfield

Flora was in that state where the spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak and wishes to go on holiday - and where the flesh in most cases wins hands down with a packed suitcase. It did so now. So she did what many a researcher both great and insignificant does when they are stuck. She yawned while contemplating how to catch the Muse by surprising Her. Almost invariably, the Muse has seen it all before - and also yawns. — Mavis Cheek

Every woman I have known has actually deepened my spiritual awareness. Even if I have been a selfish man and treated them badly ... There were two women, I won't name them, who had a powerful religious effect on me. The ancient idea of a muse is there. — John Tavener

I guess my husband is a muse as well. — Tori Amos

When two souls compose a single song, The muse fans Livid wrath before long. — Euripides

File under "Hard Truths": the creative muse is fiction. If you sit around waiting for the right moment to create, you will die waiting. — Antony Johnston

Sing, Muse, of high, molded ceilings and built-in bookcases chockablock with hardcovers! Sing of armchairs with scarlet upholstery and highboys lacquered like mirrors and the elegant shadows of potted palms! Sing of a chandelier made entirely of antlers! Of what looked to be a genuine Matisse on the wall above the hearth! — Garth Risk Hallberg

Today I'm out wandering, turning my skull
into a cup for others to drink wine from.
In this town somewhere there sits a calm, intelligent man,
who doesn't know what he's about to do! — Rumi

Now as always - humility and terror. Fear that the working of my pen cannot capture the grinding of my brain. It is so easy to understand why the ancients prayed for the help of a Muse. And the Muse came and stood beside them, and we, heaven help us, do not believe in Muses. We have nothing to fall back on but our craftsmanship and it, as modern literature attests, is inadequate. May I be honest; may I be decent; may I be unaffected by the technique of hucksters. If invocation is required, let this be my invocation - may I be strong and yet gentle, tender and yet wise, wise and yet tolerant. May I for a little while, only for a little while, see with the inflamed eyes of a God. — John Steinbeck

The hours spent forming a written work can make one obsessive, distracted, compulsive, and neurotic even, especially when it comes to those rare, precious occasions of streaming pure inspiration. To have a muse moment interrupted - to watch her scuttle back into hiding with unshared insight remaining on the tip of her tongue - is a wicked irritation. When a writer's eyes glaze over, when she stares off at nothing or appears to be memorizing the lines on a blank page, when she falls asleep at the desk ... tiptoe softly. For a writer's greatest desire is to receive inspiration; her greatest nightmare, to have tossed to the wind what could've been captured in words. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Nothingness
... there in this place
where nothingness takes
but for the glimmer
a steadfast shimmer
all would be consumed ... — Muse

They believed him out of control. What they didn't know - what nobody but me knew - was that he'd never been more in control. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was free. — Pippa DaCosta

I can assure you, as anyone who has ever met a muse knows, the best way to get a muse to hang around is to show you could be having fun without her. — Z.A. Maxfield

You can wait forever for the muse to sit on your shoulder, but most of the time you know what has to be done and inspiration is not going to help you. — Nick Hornby

You're best when you're not in charge. The ego locks the muse. — Robin Williams

Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch. — Lili St. Crow

For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them. — Tom Glazer

Sing, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. Many were the men whose cities he saw and whose mind he learned, aye, and many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the sea, seeking to win his own life and the return of his comrades. Yet even so he saved not his comrades, though he desired it sore, for through their own blind folly they perished - fools, who devoured the kine of Helios Hyperion; but he took from them the day of their returning. Of these things, goddess, daughter of Zeus, beginning where thou wilt, tell thou even unto us. — Homer

Sixteen years as a freelance features journalist taught me that neither the absence of 'the Muse' nor the presence of 'the block' should be allowed to hinder the orderly progress of a book. — Jim Crace

Cicala to cicala is dear, and ant to ant, and hawks to hawks, but to me the muse and song. — Theocritus

I've found that depending on the amount of the check, disciplined inspiration can be called upon willingly. I think the name of the lesser known tenth muse was Dollar Dollar Bill Y'all. — Kevin Keck

I've long considered becoming a writer to be the death of nightmares. For me at least, since I started writing I hadn't had any. Something really terrible or awful happens in a dream and you wake up and think, awesome, and reach for a pen and paper. — Logan Kain

Your muse ain't singin' on your MTV? Can't even see him on your HD TV? — David Mutti Clark

O guide my judgment and my taste,
Sweet Spirit, author of the book
Of wonders, told in language chaste
And plainness, not to be mistook.

O let me muse, and yet at sight
The page admire, the page believe;
"Let there be light, and there was light,
Let there be Paradise and Eve!"

Who his soul's rapture can refrain?
At Joseph's ever pleasing tale
Of marvels, the prodigious train,
To Sinai's hill from Goshen's vale.

The psalmist and proverbial seer,
And all the prophets sons of song,
Make all things precious, all things dear,
And bear the brilliant word along.

O take the book from off the shelf,
And con it meekly on thy knees;
Best panegyric on itself,
And self-avouch'd to teach and please.

Respect, adore it heart and mind.
How greatly sweet, how sweetly grand,
Who reads the most, is most refind'd,
And polish'd by the Master's hand. — Christopher Smart

The hack is like the politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He's a demagogue. He panders. It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from. I — Steven Pressfield

Often the inspiration to write music comes from the voices in your head. You're not crazy. Just be thankful they are not making you rescue people in 20-degree weather at 2:30 in the morning in the forest. — Shannon L. Alder

I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to better. — Frida Kahlo

I am my own muse, the subject I know best. — Frida Kahlo

I was sitting in a movie theater at 4:13 in the morning, with a faerie muse who had vaguely psychic vampire tendencies, watching The Sixth Sense.
At this point in my life I'd had some pretty freaky, surreal experiences already, such as (1) watching my best friend move things with her mind, (2) being dragged from my wrecked car by a soulless faerie assassin, and (3) feeling the inexorable pull of the king of the dead's nightly song. And really, sitting with Nuala and watching a crazy little boy tell Bruce Willis that he saw dead people should've been included amongst them. — Maggie Stiefvater

The best restriction I learned was getting into the habit of doing something, even if I didn't feel like it, instead of running away from it. Sometimes good work needs to be earned, and when you can overcome yourself, the muse notices and celebrates. — Damien Rice

Here comes the best part," I say, realizing that I've spoken aloud the words I always tease Haddie for when she announces them at the bridge of the song. The lyrics come and I sing along as the words wash over me, moving me as they always do, bringing goose bumps to my flesh. "There you are, sitting in the garden, clutching my coffee, calling me sugar. You called me sugar."

"I don't get it," Colton says, "Why is that the best part?"

"Because it's the moment she realizes that he loves her," I muse, a soft smile on my face. — K. Bromberg

As I read my poems aloud, I paid still more attention to sound in my writing. One morning as I revised, I set down a word that I knew was not right, and I heard myself think: But I can say it so that it's right. Immediately, I knew that I had understood one of the hazards of reading aloud. Performance can paper over bad writing, or substitute for the best language. Performance is a problem, and most performance poets or slammers are actors or standup comedians and not poets; we never hear a line break and seldom a new metaphor. There are other problems with the popularity of the poetry reading, but largely the reading has been good for poetry because poets watch their own poems come back to them on the faces of listeners. One addresses not only the Muse but actual people. — Donald Hall

The interstate seems to stretch for miles in a straight line as the fields and farms give way to a more barren landscape. Loneliness has been good to me' is playing on my personal radio where I hear songs before I write them, and I wonder if this is just another mirage I will forget or if this will become a real song. It has been a long time since I've written a song, and the visits from the muse seem to be lessened by something. I still keep my faith that the muse knows best and whn I am ready the inspiration will be there. I am trying not to look too ready. I know that just invites false promise. — Neil Young

My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature.
She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves - in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. — Nick Cave

Sitting around and waiting for your muse is not the best choice. — Kristin Hannah

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from. — Steven Pressfield

The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal — Mark Twain

Writing is the best anti-depressant. — Fierce Dolan

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

The best cure for cranial constipation is emotional fiber. Feel 'something', anything.
Pain, anger, joy; if your heart goes eerily cold or leaps erratically from your chest, your synaptic bowels will soon find release. — Muse

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. — Wendell Berry

Agony's Plot
A zephyr skimmed
across my creamy skin
gently kissing
where the sun had been ... — Muse

Pity! Religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!
The flowers would spring where'er she deign'd to stray
And every muse attend her in her way. — William Cowper

You want to write? Write.

Don't wait for the muse. Write.

Just plant your butt in a chair and write. — James V. Smith Jr.

You're the half-sister of the full-blood demon, Valenti. The illegitimate child of Asmodeus - one of the Seven Princes of Hell. You were sold at birth as a plaything for lesser demons."
"A half-blood abomination," he snarled. "An embarrassment to demons everywhere. By all rights, you should be dead. — Pippa DaCosta

I worship at the temple of your body and without you, I'd have no art ... — John Geddes

I'd really like having a couple days of being a rock star, although I'd rather be a backup - like maybe the drummer for Muse ... It would also be fun to be gorgeous, like be Charlize Theron, just for a couple of days. — Stephenie Meyer

Out of the red and silver and the long cry of alarm to the poet who survives in all human beings, as the child survives in him; to this poet she threw an unexpected ladder in the middle of the city and ordained, 'Climb! — Anais Nin

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

The truth, and nothing but the truth, is that dawn begins with a wrestling match with my soul and a systematic rejection of all the other useful possibilities a day offers. I make obeisance to the story, its characters, and the muse with burnt offerings. — Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

The 'Muse' is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first awake. — Roman Payne

The muse in charge of fantasy wears good, sensible shoes. — Lloyd Alexander

You are so much more than I could have ever wished for. ~ Cate Mullen — Chris Kuhn

I would especially like to re-court the Muse of poetry, who ran off with the mailman four years ago, and drops me only a scribbled postcard from time to time. — John Updike

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. — Barbara Tuchman

When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose. This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. — Steven Pressfield

You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I'm midway through a book before it happens. However, I don't wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I'm not delivering lambs on the farm. — Barbara Kingsolver

You are capable of great things, he said with conviction. If by great things, he meant complete destruction, then yes, it would seem so. — Pippa DaCosta

Speaking Akil's name around Stefan felt like throwing gasoline on a bushfire." ~ Muse — Pippa DaCosta

Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian:
We are but mortals, and must sing of men. — Theocritus

It's something I worry about when I'm working out. I don't want to get too fit. Because I don't want the new DaVinci of this Millennium to say, "You. I have found my muse. I have to sculpt you." — Jimmy Fallon

Being human was a lot more difficult than it looked. Demon was easy. Demon was simple. Human was ... terrifying. Muse — Pippa DaCosta

Alone with the Morlocks, thought Silenus. But not even Morlocks for company in the end. Only my muse. There — Dan Simmons

The most important thing is insight, that is to be - curious - to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does. — William Faulkner

She wanted to be someone's muse - to be worshipped and adored, body and soul. She wanted to play Beatrice to a dashing and noble Dante and to inhabit Paradise with him forever. And to live a life that would rival the beauty of Botticelli's illustrations. — Sylvain Reynard

The muse whispers to you when she chooses, and you can't tell her to come back later, because you quickly learn in this business that she might not come back at all. — Terry Brooks

It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel. — William Butler Yeats

Good old-fashioned, puritanical work guilt is, for me, a better colleague than any Muse. If I reach my weekly word target by Friday afternoon, then the weekend is guilt-free. — Jim Crace

And if there is anybody out there who is crazy enough to want to become a writer, I'd say go ahead, spit in the eye of the sun, hit those keys, it's the best madness going, the centuries need help, the species cry for light and gamble and laughter. Give it to them. There are enough words for all of us. — Charles Bukowski

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

Don't keep your Muse locked up in the closet. Set them free to dance across the page and what they create will be a masterpiece. — Michelle C. Hillstrom