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Inspiration Quotes

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Inspiration Quotes

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”

“The interesting thing is that, well, here's what I think about songwriters and songs. Sometimes people sit down and say, "I gotta write a song today, I have a title" and all of that, and sometimes inspiration just happens, almost like "Sugar, Sugar" and a couple of the other songs. But basically, I just started playing the piano, and I'm not a great piano player.”

“I'm moved by us, our quirks and mistakes. I find inspiration in everything from a piece of art to the hem of a dress. I'm one of those people who sees Frank Zappa in a cup of coffee, or elephants wrestling in clouds. But also, conscious creation of all kinds moves me. And a divinely expressed performance in any genre sets me completely on fire.”

“A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”

“People who have left the group talk about how a religious inspiration took them to ISIS. It was their feeling of being marginalized as Muslims in the society where they were living, and then buying into the promise of a caliphate and of a Muslim land that is governed as in the time of the prophet. I have yet to meet anybody, or speak to anybody, who was not religiously motivated at some level.”

“I moved cities for about four months to try to provoke some inspiration and put myself in an uncomfortable situation where I would be meeting new people and have a change in locale. I look back at my career and one of my favorite records I ever made was right after I moved to Nashville.”

“The cliché of that sort of wasted, renegade, drugged-out musician of the '70s is kind of dead and gone now. And I suppose that a lot of people still keep relying on that, or some kind of image to perpetuate something that they think they're supposed to sound like. But that kind of takes you away from real inspiration and, you know, real artistic discovery of the individual.”

“You know, you're doing the same show every day, and your inspiration, you have to look no further than the fact that you know people travel across the country to see you. In a lot of cases, this is that audience's only chance to see the thing, and so, that's what gets you up in the morning, and that's what gets you giving your best performance on stage, is the awareness that this audience is ready for it, and here to have an experience, and so in turn are you.”

“I found my voice when I started doing YouTube videos, and that's when I was pretty old, to be honest. I think it's about exploration. I think it's about trying new things, meeting new people, and also, it's about borrowing inspiration from other people. Because I still have those moments where I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm a loser, what am I doing?"”

“There was a time when my taste in music was mainstream, for example - people like Jimi Hendrix - who I really based a lot of my inspiration on, was the most popular entertainer of his day. He was really number one. And bands like Led Zeppelin, The Beatles are really number one bands. But those days are very much done. I can't say that if I listen to the number one artist now that I get excited.”

“I am always looking for inspiration. I always live in big cities where I can go every day to a museum, see a lecture, meet people that are artists, go to the cinema. For me, it's like food. It is necessary for my personal growth as a person to grow as an artist, I go basically every week to three or four things. But it's real life that inspires me - when I meet somebody, when I see something.”

“Michael Moore's first big film "Roger & Me" has an extremely powerful scene in which a family in Flint, Michigan is evicted right around Christmas. That was an inspiration to me to document the stories of people living on the edge as they're happening. My aim in "A House Divided" was to explore the urgent challenges of housing inequity in New York through the eyes of Norman Lear.”

“A lot of people in the jazz community are looking at how much notoriety we're getting. And we're an inspiration to a lot of young people, because now there's something new they can aim for that's in their grasp. Because a lot of times when you attend a jazz college it's all about the history, none of the teachers there are forward-thinking, for the most part, so they don't teach you how to be yourself and embrace the music around you.”

“I think what's interesting about Alice Munro, too, is the extreme mundanity of things. And how even a life reduced to complete mundanity, like capitalism taking over rural Ontario or whatever, has complete sway over aspects of life. Nevertheless, people still have these moments of weird desperation, weird longing, weird true love, or weird, powerful lust, and that was a major inspiration for me, too.”

“I don't think talent has anything to do with inspiration. Inspiration creates talent. People prioritize innate talent too much. It gives them license to walk around and act like assholes. I think I straddle a line between being innately talented and having had to put in some work. You ever go to a party where there are a lot of creative people and they feel like they have license to just act any kind of way? I'm not really a moral person myself, but they just tend to never ever be sincere because they believe their art or the fact that they are artists makes them holy in some way.”

“I moved in with my grandma when I was 17 and she had this giant bookshelf and it was fascinating to me. She got me into reading. My grandma is part of the writing community. She's so cute - I went to get breakfast with her out in L.A. and she came in with a giant straw hat and orange jumpsuit. She was always a big inspiration in me in continuing in the arts, whether it was acting or I started to paint. I didn't want to be one of those people that was like, "Oh my dad's an actor, so I'm an actor." It just never works out.”

“I think there are so many young girls out there who may be discouraged by the images they see in magazines or on TV, because it's such a media-driven culture. But people will be a lot more accepting of themselves when they feel included. Through my website, I'm in touch with a 13-year-old girl from Brazil; like me, she was born with a piece of her arm missing. She thanked me for the work I'm doing and said I give her strength, inspiration and confidence. Showing a young girl like that how you can be happy and have feelings of confidence is one of my biggest achievements to date.”

“I'm very interested in fashion shows. For me they're at the center of everything. What happens on the side, that's the energy - it's fashion week - but fashion shows are at the heart of it. I function more like a stylist. I'm inspired, and then I try to find it on the street. What's great about a blog is that you can do completely crazy things like take the moustache shoes Marc Jacobs did for Louis Vuitton for spring and talk about what that has to do with moustaches. In fashion, what people are looking for is inspiration and new ideas all the time.”

“When I look in the mirror I see the woman I knew I wanted to be as a child. When I was a young girl, I had a vision of the woman I wanted to be. And I often reached out to women of color in America for inspiration. My mother would regularly buy Essence and Ebony. I would look at those magazines filled with images of professional, intelligent women of color who knew who they were, who enjoyed who they were, and who were surrounded by other people who enjoyed who they were. When I look in the mirror, I'm really glad that that's what I see today, but it took awhile to get here.”