But he finds most of his inspiration in the chaos of daily life in Mexico City, where poverty and religion, contemporary politics and indigenous traditions intermingle so easily.

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If you are ready to chuck your rat-race career for something in the boondocks, take inspiration from Life 2.0, by FORBES Publisher Rich Karlgaard.

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He was a great observer too, taking the myriad impressions of a life constantly in motion as his inspiration, from the Harlem of his youth, where he reigned as musical king of the celebrated Cotton Club, to the international tours of his later years.

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But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places, that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Americans who are anything but ordinary.

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Though Mr Bellow is Canadian-born, the city of Chicago has always been a vital part of his inspiration, and his biographer captures the ebullience of life in an immigrant neighbourhood in the 1920s and 1930s, where the strains of survival were more than compensated by a bustling energy and sense of shared possibility.

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That is the paramount lesson and inspiration of Sam Maloof's life and woodwork, plainly visible in this Huntington exhibition.

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He was inspired by the Academy's life classes and after travelling extensively in France and Italy found further inspiration in the Venetian Old Masters.

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If you just keep doing that, day in and day out, 150 years from now people might be drawing inspiration from your life, as well.

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