Rufus Wainwright Quotes

I don't wait for inspiration. I get up and write every day.

Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.

Being in the studio is okay but sitting in a room by yourself composing is a discipline that takes a certain type of mind set and Tommy has a great gift for that as did the previous guy.

I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.

You have to write every day, and you have to write whether you feel like it or not.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don't apply to you. Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work. Every great idea I've ever had grew out of work itself. Sign onto a process and see where it takes you. You don't have to invent the wheel everyday. Today you will do what you did yesterday, tomorrow you will do what you did today. Eventually, you will get somewhere.

Whether it's a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory, the routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.

I wish somebody had given me the news that ideas don't just fall on your head like fairy dust. You have to treat that like a job. You have to spend hours each day, where you're just like, 'This is the part of the day when I'm looking for an idea.'

If I'm painting, I paint every day. I'll be up in the studio from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night.

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

Capote wrote every day. He said that's the only way, you have to sit down every day and do it.

I try to stay focused on my creativity.

Don't fall into the trap of having to have everything perfect to write or wait until the mood strikes you. If you want it as a job, treat it like a job, and just as you don't go to work only when you feel like it, you have to condition yourself to sit and write even when the ideas don't flow.

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.

If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.

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

I'm usually the one who creates most of my work. I have a lot of different ideas that I want to do, so I'm always like, 'Get on it, girl.'

I'm constantly writing music and keeping myself busy somehow.

Every day I write. I am not waiting for a great idea from heaven.

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.

I have disciplined myself when I'm working. When I discovered art, I realized that one could keep that search going within creation. But I also realize that in order to create the art, you have to stay, you can't go too far.

Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good and not so good.

A lot of artists need structure.

I don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. Some of the time you know you're cooking, and the rest of the time, you just do it.