sound sleep and the provocation of a good book

I learned... that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.
Brenda Ueland

Every true artist has been inspired more by the beauty of lines and color and the relationships between them than by the concrete subject of the picture.
Piet Mondrian

I could never tell where inspiration begins and impulse leaves off. I suppose the answer is in the outcome. If your hunch proves a good one, you were inspired; if it proves bad, you are guilty of yielding to thoughtless impulse.
Beryl Markham

Painting without inspiration is like trying to drive a car with flat tires.
Ron Elstad

When inspiration doesn't come, I go halfway to meet it.
Sigmund Freud

What is indispensable to inspiration? ...sound sleep and the provocation of a good book or a companion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a great deal of poetry and sentiment in a chest of tea.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can look anywhere and find inspiration.
Frank Gehry