“Artistic temperament sometimes seems a battleground, a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of creativity wrestling.”

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”

August Wilson (1945–2005) American playwright

“I once wrestled with an angel. He won, but I learned a few things.”

Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1951) Spanish writer and journalist

“Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“If the angels are unkind or the season is dark,
Or if in the end
Love just falls apart.
Well then here's to our destruction.
Baby let me be your soul driver.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

“Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity — reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel — Art.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

“Where the bright seraphim in burning row
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

“Ruffian or devil, black as hell or bright as angels, thenceforth he was nothing to me.”

Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) American novelist, historian and editor

“In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

“Dark Angel, with thine aching lust
To rid the world of penitence:
Malicious Angel, who still dost
My soul such subtile violence!”

Lionel Johnson (1867–1902) English poet