A good friend of mine is reading Cousin Bette by Balzac. She shared a quote with me that I thought was rather beautiful.
” To think, to dream, to conceive fine works, is a delightful occupation. It is dreaming cigar-smoke dreams, or living a courtesan’s self-indulgent life.
It means never being disheartened by the upheavals of a frenetic life, but making of the growing work of art a living masterpiece, which in sculpture speaks to all eyes, in literature to all minds, in paintings to all memories, in music to every heart. This is the travail of execution.” Honoré de Balzac
The World Outside the Window 