Karen Elson Quotes

I get a fine warm feeling when I'm doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let's face it, writing is hell.

I don't know which is stronger: the thrill of winning or the fear of failure. I don't know which one affects me most. I don't know where the middle is.

In general, I don't know when inspiration will pop up.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I'd be writing hit songs every minute.

All that time, you go, 'God, am I slipping away here?' And then something great happens, you get a call, and work begets more work.

I constantly have a devil on my shoulder telling me that what I'm doing is really horrible, and then somehow the lightning strike happens and everything comes together. I've just realized I have to live with that devil on my shoulder a little bit more.

I think subconsciously or selfishly I knew that I was supposed to do something. It was like a thumping or a throbbing saying, "Yes, this what you've been waiting for." But you're a little dim to those spiritual thoughts when you're dumb like me. So I did have to get a little bit of a kick. I played it for a bunch of people and I think their reactions were warm and deep enough that they gave me the courage to get [the record] out there.

I have a horror of silence while I'm writing. It's like the universe is howling at me if I don't have it.

Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own?

When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best - that is inspiration.

It's seen as dirty to be ambitious. What if U2 weren't ambitious? We wouldn't have that gift we have from them.

I give as much as I can, and it's up to someone else to turn it into a movie. Good luck to you!

I get inspired at different times and in different ways.

We actors are superstitious creatures. We do all the homework, and we put all of the components together, but there's always one key aspect that we're not in charge of, really, and that's magic. You are always on the lookout for where and how that magic is going to ignite.

I just consider being one of the luckiest people in the sense that creativity came to me and it flowed.

You write a hit the same way you write a flop.

A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance.

I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together.

I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.

To live as an artist requires hard work or some extraordinary good fortune to come your way.

You need fear to create, to live.

Every song I've written is luck, I think; it's luck - 'How did that just happen?'

There's very few geniuses that come and revolutionize everything. For the rest of us that want to be artists and have something to say, it's a lot of work and a lot of luck.

The first tape I got was Madonna's 'Immaculate Collection.' I'm inspired by the way she started from nothing and didn't have a big musical talent, but had a big dream.

Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.