Maurice Chevalier on inspiration

"Inspiration comes unawares, from unaccountable sources that have nothing to do with planning or intelligence. Let it cool ever so slightly, and you are left, pen or brush in hand, with no inspiration at all. Gifted people need not, therefore, make a song and dance about being or supposing themselves superior. They simply happened to be born with that fortunate, subconscious equipment of theirs, and the mystery exists independently of intelligence or ambition." - Maurice Chevalier

Maurice Chevalier on the artistic process

"It all boils down to instinct, good or bad. Artistic creation must be spontaneous. It comes from the heart; it has to pass through the brain; and still one needs the guts, and good old indispensable technique, to bring it to the light of day. That at least is how I see the process, not that I have ever been able to pin it down very exactly in my own case. You hear a voice inside. You obey it, and produce whatever it told you to produce; and then you wait and see. And oh! The trouble you're in for."

(He's part of my reading for the Two Birds book.)