Waiting For Inspiration Quotes & Sayings

There is someone out there, watching us screw up and waiting for the day we come face to face and explain ourselves. — C.E. Dimond

Here is a simple recipe to begin with. Get up every morning with the set intention of writing and go to your desk and sit there for three hours, whether you accomplish anything or not. Before long you will find that you are writing madly, not waiting for inspiration. — Gertrude Atherton

Often, we may feel a wave of inspiration come over us, but then it passes, sometimes too quickly for us to act on it. Waiting for inspiration is like waiting for a bus that has stopped running on a particular route; you've got to find the new route if you want to catch a bus and get to where you want to go. — Cynthia M. Bulik

I will wait for God's promises to be fulfilled in my life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Don't waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Anyone who tries to make a living as a painter knows you can't lounge about waiting for inspiration to hit; nothing motivates like keeping a roof over your head. — Nita Engle

The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself ... Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel. — George Gershwin

Stop waiting for creative inspiration. Start creating and inspire yourself along the way. — Ryan Lilly

There is an advantage in having a routine and working with the same people when you can and in writing as a regular thing and filming as a regular thing. That routine pays off for you. You get a lot of productivity that way, rather than sitting around waiting for inspiration and waiting for the perfect thing to happen. I would be much less productive that way. — Woody Allen

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

As I grow older part of my emotional survival plan must be to actively seek inspiration instead of passively waiting for it to find me. — Bebe Moore Campbell

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I'm too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She's waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I'm eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I'm so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met? — F.K. Preston

I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write. — Elmore Leonard

Wait for the idea. It may not come at first, but you must be patient, never doubting, waiting in faith. It will come. — Ernest Holmes

We write because the blank piece of paper and the pen are there. We write because this is our addiction and we are proud of it. Our habit, our drug, our crutch. Whatever you wish to call it. We write because since an early age we felt it deep in our souls and in our bones. The poem must be written, the story must be told and the new myths and Gods are waiting for you to bring them forth from out of the darkness and to bring them into the light of being. You are a creator, so create. You are the writer. So write. — R.M. Engelhardt

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration - it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. — Tim Kreider

In many chapels, reddened by the setting sun, the saints rest silently, waiting for someone to love them." These words, penned by an unknown priest, long dead,were the inspiration for my new series on the lives of saints who have fallen deep into the shadows of obscurity. My hope is that, in reading their heroic stories, you will make the acquaintance of some of God's Forgotten Friends. (From the Preface of "Saint Magnus The Last Viking") — Susan Peek

There may be a day when you find yourself standing at the precipice, looking down into the abyss of hopelessness and waiting, pleading, begging for someone who has been in this place before to come alongside you and show you the way back to hope. — J. Loren Norris

Had I mentioned to someone around 1795 that I planned to write, anyone with any sense would have told me to write for two hours every day, with or without inspiration. Their advice would have enabled me to benefit from the ten years of my life I totally wasted waiting for inspiration. — Enrique Vila-Matas

The one mistake which is committed habitually by people who have the gift of half-genius, is waiting for inspiration. — Philip Gilbert Hamerton

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

Waiting for inspiration is like standing at the airport waiting for a train. — Leigh Michaels

In you is a formidable force that can bring the desired change you want in the world. Stop waiting for the perfect time, go to work now! — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Waiting for inspiration is for amateurs; professionals get to work. — Robert Genn

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it. — Federico Fellini

One day work is hard, and another day it is easy; but if I had waited for inspiration I am afraid I should have done nothing. The miner does not sit at the top of the shaft waiting for the coal to come bubbling up to the surface. One must go deep down, and work out every vein carefully. — Sir Arthur Sullivan

I don't wait for inspiration. I'm not, in fact, quite sure what inspiration is, but I'm sure that if it is going to turn up, my having started work is the precondition of its arrival. — Quentin Blake

If you are standing in one place waiting for something to change, you may be there for a while. You've got to move. Step up and take a swing. Make something happen — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up. — E.B. White

When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day. — Alberto Moravia

So, the combination of looking at lots of different people and how they react to each other and how they relate to each other and waiting for that inspiration is the thing that allows me to keep writing. — Joan Armatrading

A lot of young writers wait for inspiration. The inspiration only hits you at the desk. — Robert Anderson

For those of you who are, "waiting for a sign" ... If you woke up today, THAT'S YOUR SIGN! — Steve Maraboli

Completing any writing project, particularly a novel, is a daunting prospect. Many people become frozen by the prospect. Others keep waiting for the right time. Some wait for the spark of inspiration. Even experienced writers find it is easier to do anything other than actually write. — Bob Mayer

The truly great actors, like Charlize Theron, are just like, "I'm an actor. For hire. I show up, I do my job." There's no "I'm just waiting for the inspiration." They just do their jobs. They say, "Let's go over the scene a few times and get it." — Patton Oswalt

If you haven't arrived yet, keep driving, your destiny is waiting for you. — Rob Liano

Do not wait for miracles to happen. The greatest miracle in life is life itself. — Jaggi Vasudev

Instead of waiting for the right moment, BE the right moment. You won't be ready for anything if you aren't ready to be you. — Kaiden Blake

You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't. — Conor Oberst

Beware some people are just talking to you to gain information to use against you. Be careful with what you say around others because it may not be understood the way you expected. There are those who are waiting for the opportunity to spread rumors. And, with only a few words your life has been turned into a soap opera. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

As it turns out, now is the moment you've been waiting for — Lucinda Williams

You know, you have to start with hope ... you don't get anywhere in this country without hope. So it's a necessity. What Barack says is that people have to understand hope isn't just blind optimism. It isn't passive. It isn't just sitting there waiting for things to get better. Hope is the vision that you have to have. It's the inspiration that moves people into action ... There are more people engaged in this political process in this year than we've seen in my lifetime. And it is all because of hope because people believe in the possibility of something unseen. — Michelle Obama

After the first shock of recognition - a sudden sense of "this is what I'm going to write" - the novel starts to breed by itself; the process goes on solely in the mind, not on paper. I feel a kind of gentle development, an uncurling inside, and I know that the details are there already, that in fact I would see them plainly if I looked closer, but I prefer to wait until what is loosely called inspiration has completed the task for me. — Vladimir Nabokov

No matter what happens or what we go through, there is always a miracle waiting for us. The miracle is you. — Takatsu

Sitting around waiting for inspiration is for amateurs. If you're a professional, you show up every day at work. — Mara Altman

For me, businesses are like buses. You stand on a corner and you don't like where the first bus is going? Wait ten minutes and take another. Don't like that one? They'll just keep coming. There's no end to buses or businesses. — Sheldon Adelson

Now I found it in writing sentences. You can write that sentence in a way that you would have written it last year. Or you can write it in the way of the exquisite nuance that is sriting in your mind now. But that takes a lot of ... waiting for the right word to come. — Joseph Campbell

For every person is a gaping space waiting to be filled with God. — Olivier Clement

Your life right now is pretty darn good! Some people wait all day for 5pm, all week for Friday, all year for the holidays, all their lives for happiness. Don't be one of them. Don't wait until your life is almost over to realize how good it has been. The good life begins right now, when you stop waiting for a better one. — Anonymous

I played Lucky in Waiting for Godot at Yale and it was a thing that Stanislavski talks about: he says you don't need his 'method' if you can count on your inspiration and it was a moment of inspiration that came to me, not in rehearsal but on stage. It hit me right there in the middle of the play and it was great-it travelled into immediate communication. — Sam Waterston

I'll admit that writing doesn't always come, but I'm totally against walking around looking at the sky when you're experiencing a block, waiting for inspiration to strike you. Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov didn't like each other and agreed on very few things, but they were of one opinion on this: you had to write constantly. If you can't write a major work, write minor trifles. If you can't write at all, orchestrate something. — Dmitri Shostakovich

An individual's yearning to reach outside his life is a seed of greatness waiting for a stream of inspiration. Carving that stream to people's hearts is a simpler task if the endeavor you are leading them into is attached to a bigger story. — Mac Anderson

Inspiration is a powerful change agent waiting for you to harness it. — Elaina Marie

There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly? — Erin Hanson

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's a lot of "fiddle-faddle" wrapped up in that word "inspiration." It is the last resort of the lazy writer, of the man who would rather sit and dream than be up and doing. If the majority of writers who depend upon fiction for a livelihood were to wait for the spirit of inspiration to move them, the sheriff would happen along and tack a notice on the front door--while the writers were still waiting. — John Milton Edwards

The stars, like the hollow eyes of a god forgotten, marry the sadness of the exhausted hour and inspire a little chaos, a little gentleness, to those below.

I look up at the sky and see everything I've ever lost,
waiting for me. — Marlen Komar

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

As for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there's no point in waiting for so-called blissful moments, for inspiration; if it comes, so much the better
but you keep working anyway. — Ivan Turgenev

Inspiration is already here, waiting for you to turn around and look at it. — Matthew Krause

One had only to look at the map to see that Panama was the proper place for the canal. The route was already well established, there was a railroad, there were thriving cities at each end. Only at Panama could a sea-level canal be built. It was really no great issue at all. Naturally there were problems. There were always problems. There had been large, formidable problems at Suez, and to many respected authorities they too had seemed insurmountable. But as time passed, as the work moved ahead at Suez, indeed as difficulties increased, men of genius had come forth to meet and conquer those difficulties. The same would happen again. For every challenge there would be a man of genius capable of meeting and conquering it. One must trust to inspiration. As for the money, there was money aplenty in France just waiting for the opening of the subscription books. — David McCullough

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don't believe too much into inspiration, only I'm waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It's a little too easy to say that. — Karl Lagerfeld

Keep working. Don't wait for inspiration. Work inspires inspiration. Keep working. — Michael Crichton

There are two things we should always be 1. raw and 2. ready. When you are raw, you are always ready and when you are ready you usually realize that you are raw. Waiting for perfection is not an answer, one cannot say "I will be ready when I am perfect" because then you will never be ready, rather one must say "I am raw and I am ready just like this right now, how and who I am. — C. JoyBell C.

You know things are moving. You're changing, you fellow Dead are changing, the world is ready for something miraculous. What are we waiting for? — Isaac Marion

He jokingly thought that this guy fancied himself some kind of Jedi knight, waiting for him to say, 'these are not the droids you're looking for. — Wendy Owens

Reaching a 'creative' state of mind thru positive action is considered preferable to waiting for 'inspiration'. — Minor White

My daughter, I can't give up because she's watching and she's here and she's waiting for me to be an example. So, between her, myself, and my will, and me pushing myself, that's my inspiration. — Brandy Norwood

Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager. — Susan Sontag

The world is waiting for us to graduate from ourselves. — Shannon L. Alder

So each time a person decides to wait for 'time to change things', he or she is actually waiting for other people to change his or her fortunes. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

I sat day after day in my little room, waiting for inspiration to visit me, trying to invent a pseudonym that would express, in a combination of noble and striking sounds, our dream of artistic achievement, a pen name grand enough to compensate for my own feeling of insecurity and helplessness at the idea of everything my mother expected from me. — Romain Gary

Every time I sit for a song, I feel I am finished. It's like a beggar sitting waiting for God to fill your bowl with the right thought. In every song, I ask help from Him. Everybody around is so good, so to create music that will connect with so many people is not humanly possible without inspiration. — A.R. Rahman

The essential key for writing is to write regularly - like it or not - great ideas come often by writing; releasing the subconscious - waiting for inspiration and ideas will not work, but it does help to have a notebook with you all the time for sudden brainstorms or inspiration. — Robert Marc Friedman

Every idea occurs while you are working. If you are sitting around waiting for inspiration, you could sit there forever. — Chuck Close

Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. — Ernest Newman

Passively sitting around and waiting for things to happen only leaves things up to chance, which you have no control over. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Waiting for a sign? What sign do you await, besides your own misery? What sign, besides the calendar that reminds you how many days and years you've thrown away? What other sign do you need besides the burning inner fire that demands you're better than what you've settled for? Stop lying to yourself! You have seen so many signs ... you know what you want ... no more delays ... no more excuses! Our days are too limited to wait for signs ... Life IS a sign! Go live it! — Steve Maraboli

I have learned, as has many another better writer, to summon inspiration to my call as soon as I begin my day's stint, and not to hang around waiting for it. Inspiration is merely a pretty phrase for the zest to work. And it can be cultivated by anyone who has the patience to try. Inspiration that will not come at its possessor's summons is like a dog that cannot be trained to obey. The sooner both are gotten rid of, the better. — Albert Payson Terhune

Everybody dies.
Some die still waiting for inspiration. — Christina Escamilla