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.)