“As I describe inspiration I do not want you to think I am speaking of religion.
That which takes us by surprise - moments of happiness - that is inspiration. Inspiration which is different from daily care.
Many people as adults are so startled by inspiration which is different from daily care that they think they are unique In having had it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Inspiration is there all the time.”

Quoted by Richard Sandomir in " ESPN's New Master of the Offensive Foul http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/arts/television/31sand.html?ei=5090&en=f4ace7eed00624de&ex=1280462400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rs&pagewanted=print", New York Times (July 31, 2005).

Source: The Victorian Age in Literature (1913), On Algernon Charles Swinburne Ch. III: The Great Victorian Poets (p. 95)

From the Q&A section (found July 2010) http://www.philip-pullman.com/q_a.asp?offset=60
Pullman's website
Context: If you're going to make a living at this business - more importantly, if you're going to write anything that will last - you have to realise that a lot of the time, you're going to be writing without inspiration. The trick is to write just as well without it as with. Of course, you write less readily and fluently without it; but the interesting thing is to look at the private journals and letters of great writers and see how much of the time they just had to do without inspiration. Conrad, for example, groaned at the desperate emptiness of the pages he faced; and yet he managed to cover them. Amateurs think that if they were inspired all the time, they could be professionals. Professional know that if they relied on inspiration, they'd be amateurs.

Colonel Doctor Jens Ladislav in Ch. 33 : dezmai of the drums, p. 294
The Visitor (2002)

Presidential Address to All India Muslim League's Session on March 22, 1940
Context: It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian nation has troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, litterateurs. They neither intermarry nor interdine together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspect on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans (Muslims) derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes, and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other and, likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built for the government of such a state.

Quoted in Trust Your Next Shot: A Guide to a Life of Joy by Meadowlark Lemon (Ascend Books, 2010), p. III https://books.google.it/books?id=_UT_2hRSc9wC&pg=PR3.

Source: We Were Liars