The Need

I’m prowling quotes tonight in search of the perfect words to inspire me as a writer for life.  DH just got his first tattoo and though I have no intention of doing the same any time soon (gotta get babies over with first), the concept is on my mind.  I’d like to do something along these lines, but about writing:

I haven’t narrowed it down to words yet, but more than likely it will be something by Madeleine L’Engle, who is, hands down, my greatest inspiration as a writer.  As I’ve been searching I came across this quote:  “I’ve worked with a lot of artists, Em, and they all have a need that cannot be met by another human being.”
– Madeleine L’Engle, Certain Women. Now this isn’t going to be the quote, but I think it expresses a fundamental truth about writers and artists.  We pursue our craft, whatever it may be, often to the exclusion of other important things–spouse, children, social life…  Not all the time (well not all of us anyway), but we’re chasing something.  For people who call themselves artist (the serious ones, not the dabblers who wait for inspiration to strike), there’s this gut-level yearning, an itch that has to be scratched, has to be answered.  And God help the significant other who doesn’t understand that.  My husband is a musician, so this is a concept he ought to grasp fairly easily–but his craft is not so easily pursued professionally as mine, and in the last five years he’s gotten jaded and forgotten the drive, the itch, the need.  And it’s led to lots of arguments and irritation.  Ultimately he learns (and must revisit the lesson on about a quarterly basis) that if I don’t get that thing that I need from my writing, I am a very unhappy wife.  And that usually leads to two and a half months of me getting to work in relative peace (albeit with rolled eyes on his part when he has to repeat himself three times before I respond).

Anybody have quote suggestions?