Ernest Newman Quotes

Any working composer or painter or sculptor will tell you that inspiration comes at the eighth hour of labour rather than as a bolt out of the blue. We have to get our vanities and our preconceptions out of the way and do the work in the time allotted.

I'm not very prolific. I'm not good at sitting down as an artist and saying 'Okay, I need to put in my four hours today.'

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.

Inspiration does not always precede the act of writing; it often follows it.

For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.

I'm probably creative for half an hour a day. The rest of the time, I'm just doing what's necessary to make that creativity visible.

There's no such thing as writer's block. I'm brilliant all the time every day. It never stops.

Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands out and invites you to work on it, to elaborate it or animate it in some way. It's a mysterious process.

There's no writer's block; there's only distraction.

Even if you're not releasing songs, the act of creativity is important. That's the part I love, when you're in the moment. The rest of it I'm not particularly interested in at all.

An author who waits for the right 'mood' will soon find that 'moods' get fewer and fewer until they cease altogether.

I get so many ideas for songs, but I'm so seldom disciplined enough to sit down and crank them out.

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.

Usually, I create tunes that are fragmented. I think the biggest obstacle for people with their creativity is that they feel they have to sit down and create this finished, polished product.

I do not believe in inspiration, but I must have a title in order to work, otherwise I am lost.

I go into my workroom seven mornings a week. There will only be one or two mornings a week where it seems to be going well, but to earn those days you have to go through slow, slodgy days where your mind feels like porridge.

In all fields of creativity you see the result of work that has become habit. Where the creative impulse has become flaccid or has died out altogether, and yet because it is our work and our life we continue to do it.

Like all artists, I go through creative spurts.

One reason I don't suffer Writer's Block is that I don't wait on the muse, I summon it at need.

Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

You don't have to have a great art idea - just get to work and something will happen. So that's pretty much my modus operandi and pretty much my principal position, such as it is.

Maybe some people, when they sit down to write their great novel or make their great record or paint their great painting, they have it all planned out in their head. But for me, it's never worked that way.

I really believe that cultivating creativity, as a general principle, is about managing your energy.

I'm really happy when I'm actively creating things. When I'm frustrated and not excited, it's because I haven't written anything in a month or so.

You just gotta record stuff and move on and make new material. Painters don't wait until they're in some specific gallery before they move on to the next painting.