Writing Muse Quotes & Sayings

Become my muse. And let me paint you with my words... — Avijeet Das

Please don't entertain for a moment the utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished writing. Read what the great ones have said about their jobs; how they never sit down to their work without a sigh of distress and never get up from it witout a sigh of relief. Do you imagine that your Muse is forever flamelike
breathing the inspired word, the wonderful situation, the superb solution into your attentive ear? ... Believe me, my poor boy, if you wait for inspiration in our set-up, you'll wait for ever. — Ngaio Marsh

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

She cured me of my sadness. — Avijeet Das

Today I fed him right off the bat, and only checked Facebook twice. — Chila Woychik

when i write of you, my dear
i am holding you
in the most
exquisite
ways. — Sanober Khan

Be determined. Be persistent. Be consistent," the muse said. "Then he looked at me and winked. "Never give up, dumb-ass. — Lani Brown

Philip Larkin didn't write for several years before his life ended. And when he was asked why he didn't write, he said the muse deserted him. It sort of scared me. That's why I think I have no right to assume that some thought is going to come ... But I think, in my imagination, if it is it, there will probably be something else I'm interested in. — Paul Simon

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

You should be more careful
when you move, my dear
what with you...

spilling moonlight
into my poem, with a mere
flick of your hand. — Sanober Khan

The one thing a writer has to have is a pencil and some paper. That's enough, so long as she knows that she and she alone is in charge of that pencil, and responsible, she and she alone, for what it writes on that paper. In other words, that she's free. Not wholly free. Never wholly free. Maybe very partially. Maybe only in this one act, this sitting for a snatched moment being a woman writing, fishing the mind's lake. But in this, responsible; in this autonomous; in this free.
(- from The Fisherwoman's Daughter) — Ursula K. Le Guin

Writing is self-reinforcing. Don't make a fetish out of it, and don't surrender to the myth of the garret, or the myth of the chained muse. It's like playing the guitar, or practicing taekwondo, or having sex. The more you do, the better you get. The better you get, the better it feels. The better it feels, the more you want to do. — Jay Lake

No writing? Your muse isn't speaking to you?'
'She rarely does. International cell charges and whatnot. Besides which, she's flighty and nearly impossible to understand. And she says I always misinterpret her intentions.'
'Muses. What can you do, right? — Kiersten White

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks 'the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,'.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I'm writing, I write. And then it's as if the muse is convinced that I'm serious and says, 'Okay. Okay. I'll come. — Maya Angelou

My Muse sits forlorn
She wishes she had not been born
She sits in the cold
No word she says is ever told. — Stevie Smith

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

The novella will be called, I think, "The Messiah of Stockholm." It takes place in Stockholm. I'd better say no more, or the Muse will wipe it out. — Cynthia Ozick

The muse is fickle; ergo, when she knocks, ANSWER! It may take a while, but trust me, she WILL knock. In the meantime, keep your ear pressed firmly to the door. — Quentin R. Bufogle

I'm only able to write poetry, for the most part, when I have a Muse, a woman who focuses the world for me. — May Sarton

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

I would write my tears, weeping out my pain - I would empty my veins for ink. — Muse

Never fails. Every new book I write seems impossible, writes like I'm typing from dictation, edits like I didn't write it, and finishes like I couldn't possibly have written it. — Kris Rafferty

At the day's end, a writer lives alone with her story, wrestling with characters and settings, and the way light filters into and out of a scene. The deeper messages often escape her.Sometimes I take for granted the journey through the telling. At other times I curse the muse's power. But through it all, I live each day in deep gratitude. — Jacqueline Woodson

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

The first two, three, four weeks are wasted. I just show up in front of the computer. Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn't show up invited, eventually she just shows up. — Isabel Allende

Remember a feeling of excitement, of sudden inspiration, when I was visiting Giovanni Boccaccio's home in the walled village of Certaldo, outside of Florence. (Boccaccio was the medieval author of The Decameron.) It was as though I had met my muse! After this trip, I read The Decameron and began writing the Alchemy Series in earnest. — Mary Pope Osborne

The Price of a Muse

I write for
resurrection

to see bodies reassemble
and rise

I've tried to write my dog
off of the pavement

my first girlfriend back
into my arms

a love into more everlasting
than it was

my own soul
into being.

I know now the price
of a muse.

My writing
has not saved me.

It won't
save you.

But let me try
to raise us up. — Nancy Boutilier

The other me, who did not mean to drown herself, went under the sea and remained there for a long time. Eventually she surfaced near Japan and people gave her gifts but she had been so long under the sea she did not recognize what they were. She is a sly one. Mostly at night we commune. Night. Harbinger of dream and nightmare and bearer of omens which defy the music of words. In the morning the fear of her going is very real and very alarming. It can make one tremble. Not that she cares. She is the muse. I am the messenger. — Edna O'Brien

I wake up in the morning, or the middle of the night when an idea comes through. My songwriting style, basically I just write down information given to me from the muse and how that works for songwriters. Record the muse and the muse delivers. — Creed Bratton

At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that - the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, train himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance. That is, to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is ... curiosity to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does. And if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got that or not.
[Press conference, University of Virginia, May 20, 1957] — William Faulkner

If I ever saw my muse she would be an old woman with a tight bun and spectacles poking me in the middle of the back and growling, Wake up and write the book! — Kerry Greenwood

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

Never durst a poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink was tempered with love's sighs. — William Shakespeare

Never wait for your muse. Train him/her to show up to work when you do by pushing on. It's a dominant submission thing. — Darynda Jones

The muse appears at the point in my writing when I sense a subtle shift, a nudge to move over, and everything cracks open, the writing is freed, the lanuage is full, resources are plentiful, ideas pour forth, and to be frank, some of these ideas surprise me. It seems as thought the universe is my friend and is helping me write, its hand over mine. — Amy Tan

You do violence with your words if you force them - art is given - the words received, moment by moment from unseen hands - call it a Muse ... — John Geddes

Real writers write. Period. No, the muse does not come to visit everyday. She's a lazy, precocious flirt. You cannot get into the habit of being "in the mood" to write. No writer on Earth is in the mood to write everyday, but the good ones do it anyway. They fight through their fatigue, their stress, their doubt, and they write. They get the words on the page. Period.
So stop waiting for your muse. Trust me, she sleeps around. — Darynda Jones

Discipline is what makes a writer. If writing was like lifting weights, then I'd look like Mr. Universe. Write every day. Give the Muse a chance to get to know you. — Tony D'Souza

Laughing in my ear is a muse amused by how I paint her whims on paper with silly words. — Richelle E. Goodrich

We talk about our assholes. We talk about our cocks. We talk about who we fucked last night, or who we're gonna fuck tomorrow ... Everyone tells one's friends about that, right? So the question is, what happens when you make a distinction between what you tell your friends and what you tell your muse? The trick is to break down that distinction, to approach your muse as frankly as you would talk to yourself, or to your friends. It's the ability to commit to writing, to write the same way you are. — Allen Ginsberg

Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted. — Joseph Campbell

I believe it's impossible to write good poetry without reading. Reading poetry goes straight to my psyche and makes me want to write. I meet the muse in the poems of others and invite her to my poems. I see over and over again, in different ways, what is possible, how the perimeters of poetry are expanding and making way for new forms. — Denise Duhamel

My theory is you shouldn't apologize for believing in an idea-channeling muse. You should just be sure to feed her. — Laurie Seidler

I'm not a big fan of inspiration. I'm too old to sit and wait for the muse to give me a little kiss ... I write a lot, and I'm not afraid to make mistakes or to write badly. I can alsways fix something weak and dull. But I can't fix a blank page. — Ron Koertge

Will had discovered, even before coming to the City, that his muse was, like all muses, an incredibly finicky and temperamental mistress. He'd had several good short stories over the years, a few of them bordering on brilliant, and some of them had even been published; but these gifts from his imaginary goddess of inspiration were, in truth, frustratingly infrequent. She would hang around and whisper in his ears for hours, or days, or weeks, and then suddenly go off on an extended vacation without informing Will of her whereabouts or when she planned to return. — Chris Lester

The absurdly neurotic role you and the rest of your kind have always attributed to me Erato, the Goddess Muse of Erotic Poetry bears no relation at all to reality. As a matter of fact, I was trained as a clinical psychologist. Who simply happens to have specialized in the mental illness that you, in your ignorance, call literature. — John Fowles

i write
because

it is
the only way

i can
reach you. — Sanober Khan

Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it's all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don't buy that. It's a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don't. Every day I sit down and write. — Jodi Picoult

Sometimes I look back and think, "How did I write that? The book is smarter than I am!" I have never written strategically, but rather, followed the dictates of my muse. — Dan Millman

Your mind is a book; God is the pen. — Michael Bassey Johnson

When I was writing songs or performing or producing or dabbling in movies or even putting my career on hold to go to art school, I was just following my muse. A woman who did that then was criticized for having no direction. Today they call it versatility. — Jackie DeShannon

Writing is a spiritual practice in that people that have no spiritual path can undertake it and, as they write, they begin to wake up to a larger connection. After a while, people tend to find that there is some muse that they are connecting to. — Julia Cameron

I show up in my writing room at approximately 10 A.M. every morning without fail. Sometimes my muse sees fit to join me there and sometimes she doesn't, but she always knows where I'll be. She doesn't need to go hunting in the taverns or on the beach or drag the boulevard looking for me. — Tom Robbins

I wonder why anyone would hesitate to be generous with their writing. I mean, if you really want to make a living, go to Wall Street and trade oil futures ... We're writers. We're doing something that is inherently a generous act. We're exposing ourselves to the muse and to the things that frighten us. Why do that if you're not willing to be generous? And paradoxically, almost ironically, it turns out that the more generous you are, the more money you make. But that's secondary. For me, the privilege of being generous is why I get to do this. — Seth Godin

There is a muse, but he's not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer. He lives in the ground. He's a basement kind of guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think it's fair? I think it's fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist, but he's got inspiration. It's right that you should do all the work and burn all the mid-night oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There's stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know. — Stephen King

Start writing, and the muse will come. Not every time, but keep at it, and the muse will come enough for you to get the initial writing done. — Sam Barry

I know not what it is about you that makes me go crazy but I do know that the radiance in your eyes is more dazzling than that in all the diamonds of this world! — Avijeet Das

Really, whatever I was seeking and looking into in those days like creative arts, chant, the muse being in touch with the muse for poetry and writing and music. It's all part of the spirit and if we look particularly at Hinduism and Buddhism, the tantric stream of those traditions totally embraces all aspects of human life and life on this world. — Surya Das

I think 'G.I. Joe' is a perfect example of how I'm the world's worst businessman. If I were smart, I'd be writing 'World War Z Part 12', but I have to go where the muse leads, and I've always been a huge 'G.I. Joe' fan. I always wanted to know more about these characters, these little plastic figures I played with as a kid. — Max Brooks

There's nothing worse than being violently jerked away from creativity. — Aaron B. Powell

Writing for the love of writing. My muse makes no apologies under this pen name. ;) — Amanda Wylde

And speaking of this wonderful machine:
[840] I'm puzzled by the difference between
Two methods of composing: A, the kind Which goes on solely in the poet's mind,
A testing of performing words, while he
Is soaping a third time one leg, and B,
The other kind, much more decorous, when
He's in his study writing with a pen. In method B the hand supports the thought,
The abstract battle is concretely fought.
The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar
[850] A canceled sunset or restore a star,
And thus it physically guides the phrase
Toward faint daylight through the inky maze.
But method A is agony! The brain
Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain.
A muse in overalls directs the drill Which grinds and which no effort of the will
Can interrupt, while the automaton
Is taking off what he has just put on Or walking briskly to the corner store [860] To buy the paper he has read before. — Vladimir Nabokov

...in search of my creative muse while writing a novel. — Atlas Brown

Don't wait for the muse. — Stephen King

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

Copywriting is a design muse, it carves a beautiful masterpiece in an imaginative way. — Sharen Song

One great difference between good writing, that readers overlook, and bad writing, that they fail to notice, has to do with the number of rewrites and revisions usually required by the former. It isn't at all easy to write clear, declarative prose - transparency evolves from ruthless cutting and trimming and is hard work - while lumpy, tangle-footed writing flows from the pen as if inspired by the Muse. — Ira Levin

my poetry is merely a body.
you are the soul in my words. — Sanober Khan

The muse is the mystic force, but you are the master. — A.D. Posey

Writing is such an industry now. In many ways, that's a good thing, in that it removes all the muse-like mystique and makes it a plain old job, accessible to everyone. But with industry comes jargon. I was aware that jargon was starting to fill those growing shelves of Writer's Self Help books, not to mention the blogosphere. Wherever I looked, the writing of a script was being reduced to A, B, C plots, Text and Subtext, Three Act Structure and blah, blah, blah. And I'd think, that's not what writing is! Writing's inside your head! It's thinking! It's every hour of the day, every day of your life, a constant storm of pictures and voices and sometimes, if you're very, very lucky, insight. — Russell T. Davies

Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print. — Alexander Pope

That awesome moment when I'm in my zone. Comp on, internet off, WhatsApp muted, Word doc open, muse connected, fingers racing, time flying. Stomach groans with hunger but I can't drag myself away from the keyboard. By the time I take a break, I look back and I'm like, "Hell, yeah! — Tom Jalio

How....will I ever truly depict you?
You're perfect, my writing isn't. — Sanober Khan

Lately the muse has been treating me like Ike treated Tina. — Quentin R. Bufogle

Every writer should know their target. Aim for the heart ~ hit that and all which follows is sheer ecstasy. — Muse

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

Discipline, not the Muse, results in productivity. If you write only when she beckons, your writing is not yours at all. — Kenneth Atchity

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

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

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

It ain't so easy writing about nothin — Patti Smith

Early in her career, Muse engaged her skills for technical purposes, such as document translation and schematic visualizations for government entities. She continued to write and paint poetically, in secret, using her pen name, Muse. An inner compass is evident in her work. Pieces reflect both past and present dilemmas; while showcasing her victories in overcoming these obstacles ~ all from her faith based perspective. Light touches of modernism play hand in hand with old world strokes, offering highly visceral readings. — Earl M. Coleman

I don't know if you actually get something out of writing poetry. I think poetry is an autonomous muse that decides to come and sit on your couch. — Alice Walker

I bleed words.
I dream in narrative.
I live in infinite worlds.
I befriend figmental characters.
I wish on stars in other galaxies.
I harvest stories from a brooding muse.
I bloom under moonlight in hushed seclusion.
I am a writer. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Muses work all day long and then at night get together and dance ... — Edgar Degas

I am imbued with the notion that a Muse is necessarily a dead woman, inaccessible or absent; that a poetic structure - like the canon, which is only a hole surrounded by steel - can be based only on what one does not have; and that ultimately one can write only to fill a void or at the least to situate, in relation to the most lucid part of ourselves, the place where this incommensurable abyss yawns within us. — Michel Leiris

Words are beads on the strings of sentences. So make a beautiful necklace! — Aneta Cruz

It's the witching hour once more-
When the Muse comes out to play.
He calls me through that magic door-
Where galaxies of worlds await! — Belle Whittington

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.

When the door to my writing chamber gasps shut and the almost imperceptible sigh of a rose petal falls on my desk, I know that my muse is present. — Brandi L. Bates

Deadlines help me, but my muse hates them. My muse functions in fits and starts, and tends to take very long vacations. Deadlines are like a hot poker to his ass. They force us both to sit down and write, which is what it takes to do this. — Alistair Cross

In the TV business, you've got to write fast, and someone will tell you, "Can you rewrite this episode before ... 6 p.m.?" So that's when you rewrite it. You can't wait for the muse to show up. — Noah Hawley

To feed your Muse, then, you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child. If not, it is a little late to start. — Ray Bradbury

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. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete. — Steven Pressfield

Writing is the best anti-depressant. — Fierce Dolan

When I'm in Los Angeles, it's hard to be creative. For me, New Orleans is one of those places that's like a muse. You can hear music on the streets. There's a certain character the city has that inspires you when you're needing to write lyrics and come up with melodies and come up with rhythm and blues. The city has a pulse and it's an inspiration for me. — Chris Thomas King

I don't write to chase away my demons ~
I wield my pen as a weapon...calling those bastards to war! — Muse

Your gracefulness and feminine charms always so tender, you make my heart smile and wonder! — Avijeet Das

Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce ... Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too. — Sarah Waters

She loved me deeply, madly and passionately. She knew no other way! — Avijeet Das