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Turning to the meaning of that word "inspiration," what more can one say than that it is "in-breathing"--the in-breathing of a spiritual quality that raises a work or a person above the common order of things? I do not mean a work is inspired when it is cheaply glamorous, or that a man is inspired when he is rhetorically aggressive, or that a mind is inspired when it indulges in clever intellectual jugglery. It is my standpoint that all inspired art is the expression at most or a product at least of spiritual experience, although the latter may not be well understood by its experiencer. The experience must come first. Art is movement and noise, whereas the spirit out of which it arises is hushed stillness and invulnerable silence.

-- Notebooks Category 22: Inspiration and the Overself > Chapter 2 : Inspiration > # 1