“Inspiration comes of working every day.”

“Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work.”

“Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.”

“A deadline gets a writer's work done done better and faster than any inspiration, if only because inspirations don't always come, but the deadline is always there.”

“There's no "magic secret"; writing is like everything else; ten percent inspiration or talent, and ninety percent hard work. Persistence; keeping at it till you get there. As Agnes de Mille said, it means working every day—bored, tired, weary, or with a fever of a hundred and two.”

“I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.”