Quotes That Are Inspiring Me

I've been really stressed out lately--tooth-grinding in my sleep, wake up with a sore jaw stressed out (see this article in The Times)--so below is a list of quotes I find inspiring that are helping me keep my head right now. Or trying to help me keep my head. I'm not sure they're working.

“A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” —Paul Valery [This in my piles and piles of essay drafts.]

“There is a myth at large in the general population, easily quashable yet somehow allowed to persist, that writing comes smoothly, like gas from a pump, or at least unbidden, like tears. This is bull. No decent prose is ever dashed off, especially that which appears to be effortlessly dashing. ... grace on the page has to be earned with infinite sweat.” —Anthony Lane [I'll give you infinite sweat in the revisions I've been doing...]

"But someday we'll all be old/ And I'll be so damn beautiful" —Anna Nalick

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." —Gil Bailie