“Let the old Muse loosen her staysOr give me a new Muse with stockings and suspendersAnd a smile like a cat,With false eyelashes and finger-nails of carmineAnd dressed by Schiaparelli, with a pill-box hat....Give me a houri but houris are too easy,Give me a nun;We'll rape the angels off the golden reredosBefore we're done.”

“Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk.”

“I wept when the muse Ulla bent over me. Blinded by tears I could not prevent her from kissing me, I could not prevent the Muse from giving me that terrible kiss. All of you who have ever been kissed by the Muse will surely understand that Oskar, once branded by that kiss, was condemned to take back the drum he had rejected years before, the drum he had buried in the sand of Sapse Cemetery.”

“And don't give me the same old story:"We're in Mexico. Pray."You'd be better off taking a snake rattle.”

“I'm going to fall in love with an artist. And we'll have two kids and live in the country. A quiet life, so we can hear our muses and answer when they call. Tipping up my chin to meet his gaze, he gives me a tender, starlit smile—one that melts my insides. "I like your version better.”

“Angel and Muse approach from without; the Angel sheds light and the Muse gives form (Hesiod learned of them).  Gold leaf or chiton-folds: the poet finds his models in his laurel coppice. But the Duende, on the other hand, must come to life in the nethermost recesses of the blood.”