Nothing Without Work
And Carl’s Pale Blue Dot
I stumbled upon these on Brain Pickings this morning.
“A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.”
- Tchaikovsky
“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.”
- Isabel Allende
“Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work.”
- Chuck Close
“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”
- E.B. White
“My belief of book writing is much the same as my belief as to shoemaking. The man who will work the hardest at it, and will work with the most honest purpose, will work the best.”
- Anthony Trollope
To which I might add:
“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”
- Émile Zola
Which is of course exactly why I'm doing this dispatch instead of working right now. Though I think perhaps whatever I write today had better, on some level, be about this:
