Andrew Motion Quotes

Throughout my life, there's just periods when I write and periods when I don't. I don't feel like anything's really blocked. It's just not where things are at right now, and it's just a matter of time until there's something going on where I feel compelled to write.

I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry is sort of the source of everything I do. It's the source of my creativity.

When inspiration does not come, I go for a walk, go to the movie, talk to a friend, let go... The muse is bound to return again, especially if I turn my back!

I do not go in search of poetry. I wait for poetry to visit me.

After I left the Pumpkins, I went home and just sat around. I have a studio in my basement, and I found myself writing all these songs, just taking advantage of the relaxed situation. I wrote about 30 songs in about 30 days.

I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore.

I don't know where the ideas come from, and it's terrifying. They seem to be absolute flukes. When I was in my 20s, I'd walk around with a notebook all the time and make sure I wrote down anything that occurred to me. Now I'm just hoping that some sort of event will descend on me.

I have, like, 'Finders Keepers' fever now! Sometimes I go in the studio, and I'm like, 'That worked so well, and I wrote it in 45 minutes, so if I try wearing the same outfit and playing on the same piano, it'll happen again.'

Beauty breeds beauty; truth triggers truth. The cure for writer's block is therefore to read.

When I feel I'm going to write something, then I just am quiet and I try to listen. Then something comes through. And I do what I can in order not to tamper with it.

Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.

Chicago is many things to many people, and to me, it is a place where you can write.

Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.

I don't fight creativity. I don't fight against not being creative. If I'm not being creative, I'm not forcing it.

To me, it's like the difference between a pen and a paintbrush. Music draws from almost the identical place as art does, which really is that intangible - it's like you're pulling from the ether. I don't know where it comes from. Nobody really does. It sort of arrives when it wants to.

Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That's terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.

When I sit down to write, I just let the goose out of the bottle.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.

Occasionally, if I'm in a rut, I find changing location helps.

Poetry was the first step, and from the age of 18, there was nothing else I wanted to do.

I've gone periods of maybe four months without writing anything, but it's not a problem. It just means something's building inside you, and it'll build and it'll build, and at some point it'll come out, and it does, and it usually comes out in three or four songs, and you play it that way, really.

Everybody knows that I don't have a muse. I'm not interested in that.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.