Brenda Ueland

Listening is a magnetic and
strange thing, a creative force...
When we are listened to,
it creates us,
makes us unfold and expand.
Ideas actually begin to grow
within us and come to life...
When we listen to people
there is an alternating current,
and this recharges us so that
we never get tired of each other...
and it is this little creative fountain
inside us that begins to spring and cast up
new thoughts and unexpected
laughter and wisdom. ...
Well, it is when people really listen to us,
with quiet fascinated attention,
that the little fountain begins
to work again, to accelerate
in the most surprising way.
~Brenda Ueland~

I learned...that inspiration does not come 
like a bolt, or is it kinetic, energetic striving, 
but it comes into us lowly 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. 
~Brenda Ueland~

I learned that you should feel when writing, 
not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, 
but like child stringing beads in kindergarten-- 
happy, absorbed and quietly putting 
one bead on after another. 
~Brenda Ueland~