A Quote by Harlan Coben

The muse is not an angelic voice that sits on your shoulder and sings sweetly. The muse is the most annoying whine. The muse isn't hard to find, just hard to like - she follows you everywhere, tapping you on the shoulder, demanding that you stop doing whatever else you might be doing and pay attention to her.

Harlan Coben

Quote Topics

Angelic Annoying Attention Demanding Doing Else Everywhere Find Follows Hard Her Just Like Might Most Muse Pay Pay Attention She Shoulder Sings Stop Tapping Voice Whatever Whine Your

Quote Author

Harlan Coben
American - Author
Born: January 4, 1962

Most people assume that a muse is a creature of perfect beauty, poise and grace. Like the creatures from Greek mythology. They're wrong. In fact, there should be a marked absence of perfection in a muse--a gaping hole between what she is and what she might be. The ideal muse is a woman whose rough edges and contradictions drive you to fill in the blanks of her character. She is the irritant to your creativity. A remarkable possibility, waiting to be formed.

Kathleen Tessaro

I was Versace's muse, I was Valentino's muse, I was Alaia's muse, Lancetti's muse, Calvin Klein's, Halston's. I could go on and on.

Janice Dickinson

The concept of muse is alien to me. To speak of a muse implies there is a couple in which one person is the objectified passive element - there to help the creative, active, often male part of the duo to create. A muse is very passive. Who wants a muse? I don't want a muse.

Luca Guadagnino

It's not like that when you're a songwriter - songwriters aren't like pulp writers or journalists, even. You just follow the muse. It's called muse-ic. Whenever the muse decides to bestow her inspiration on the songwriter, then the song is born.

Cass McCombs

I wake up in the morning, or the middle of the night when an idea comes through. My songwriting style, basically I just write down information given to me from the muse and how that works for songwriters. Record the muse and the muse delivers.

Creed Bratton

You can wait forever for the muse to sit on your shoulder, but most of the time you know what has to be done and inspiration is not going to help you.

Nick Hornby

You're going to be unemployed if you really think you just have to sit around and wait for the muse to land on your shoulder.

Nora Roberts

I find it a great and fatal difference whether I court the Muse, or the Muse courts me. That is the ugly disparity between age and youth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

Nick Cave

I think of Harriet Muse as one fierce lady. She couldn't read. She had no education. She did labor her whole life. And she stood up to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey at a time where she was told where to work, where to sit, and she demanded that they pay attention to her.

Beth Macy

My muse changes all the time because I think every designer is a bit of a muse for themselves in a way - they just don't want to say it.

Donatella Versace

My muse can take the form of a landscape, an era, a style of writing, a piece of music, and, perhaps that which I find strangest of all for a muse, a human female. Of course, she's also adept at taking the form of toothless old Japanese men or young English lads with tattoos.

Quentin S. Crisp

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.