Mozart, Eliot, Shelley and Davis

If I sing something out of my opera, I have to stop at once, for this stirs my emotions.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.
T.S. Eliot

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of voice, but out of chaos.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The biggest challenge in jazz improvisation is not to play all the notes you could play, but to wait, hesitate, let space become part of the configuration.
Miles Davis

Commonplace Book is a weekly series by Teresa Carson that shares quotes on writing, creativity, art, and much much more.