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About Muse

Notable quotes

“The ancient Greek "oral poets" all had this anxiety about the deficiencies of their memories and always began poems by praying to the muse to help them remember. The invocation of the muses may have been a purely formal element by the time we encounter it, but it very likely reflected a real sense of the anxiety that the memory of forgetting could induce in a sensitive artist of an "oral society."”
— David Antin, in A Conversation with David Antin (2002) by David Antin and Charles Bernstein, p. 52
“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, in Zen in the Art of Writing (1992), p. 45
“Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus. Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.”
— Helen Hanson, in "For Writers" (14 July 2010)
“The soft, lute-finger’d Muses chaunting clear,”
— John Keats, "Lamia", Part I
“Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.”
— Amy Tan, as quoted in A Small Drop of Ink : A Collection of Inspirational and Moving Quotations of the Ages (2003) by Linda Pendleton, p. 129
“I have always believed that opera is a planet where the muses work together, join hands and celebrate all the arts.”
— Franco Zeffirelli, as quoted in International Herald Tribune (21 March 1990), and The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1983) by Robert Andrews, p. 651

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.