Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

My mother took my brother and I to a production of 'The Tempest', and it was in this very small - it could have been the basement of a church or a black box. The space was vast, but there were maybe 15 seats in the middle. Ariel came out wearing a nude sparkly thong and spike heels, and the muses had these gossamer see-through gowns on.

Happy is the man whom the Muses love: sweet speech flows from his mouth.

Writing novels is largely about endurance and patience. I take a lot of breaks, hit walls, and go do something else while I think things through. But I do it every day, and I try to treat it as a job, something that is not dictated by whimsy or muses.

It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.

I don't say things to be offensive; I say things because they're funny to me. It amuses me.

Looking back, it amuses me that people imagined that I was a very brash, fearless, redheaded young revolutionary when I was in fact a very insecure, mousy-haired, middle-aged man with a deep fear of authority.

I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.

Inspirational is the windfall from hard work and focus. Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspirational, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.

We inspire each other. Poets and Artists are best friends and muses for each other.

I don't blame her, he'd said to me earlier that day, any woman would do the same. I screwed up, I screwed up. I should have been more careful. I don't find it amusing now, but I can imagine that it seems that way to other people, I can imagine that my suffering amuses people. I do so much for them, but they find my suffering amusing. I have to be responsible, though, more discipline, more and more discipline, and if I tried that I would still be married. Not that I blame her, or anyone else, they can do what they want, but I have to be responsible for the world, and none of them know what that feels like. If I don't organize things just right, you see, everything will be destroyed. You understand? I'm not saying I'm God, but I know what it feels like to carry the world. I feel like the little boy with his finder in the dike, like I am doing a small thing, but it takes a lot of concentration. Everything depends on this, I can't even tell you, and I wish I didn't have this burden, this burden that is so much like God's own burden, but given to someone, Doctor, do you see the problem, who does not have the powers of God.

I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue - that I had to do the job myself.

"His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine. He repeats my name like the word amuses him. Entertains him. Delights him.

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste and amuses himself by applying it triumphantly wherever he travels.

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.

The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds as it amuses the fancy as it improves the understanding and as it strengthens virtue.

The virtues like the Muses are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

One expected growth change without it the world was less the well of inspiration dried up the muses fled.