None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. - Thomas Edison
The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. – Mark Twain
For most of us, divine inspiration is a lot of work--however much focused fun that can be. I occasionally write things and feel that the idea has a supernatural source. Perhaps that sounds hopelessly egotistical, but I really feel that is the case and of course rightly seen is nothing for me personally to be proud of since it represents in essence something that cannot be credited to me. (Further regarding this point is the fact that nothing of what I write is totally mine since all of us are intellectual sponges in our culture. There is no way to tell decisively which small portion of my writing can be called uniquely my own--though I think inevitably the style of any writing has the author's fingerprints upon it.)
Like many, I stand amazed at dreams. We often awake and wonder from what de profundis depths that storyline, those sets, those characters, those themes coalesced in ethereal immediacy. Figure out the source and processes of dreams, and surely we will be closer to figuring out the source and processes of inspiration.
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