Quotes About Craftsmanship

the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet.

If, however, the poetic end might have been as well or better attained without sacrifice of technical correctness in such matters, the impossibility is not to be justified, since the description should be, if it can, entirely free from error.

Art, then, as has been said, is a state concerned with making, involving a true course of reasoning, and lack of art on the contrary is a state concerned with making, involving a false course of reasoning; both are concerned with the variable

One-act [plays] are not strikingly remunerative, but, on the other hand, the veriest dullard could not spend more than a week in writing one.

Dr. Brown considered all engineers to be nothing more than glorified carpenters and plumbers.

The toolmakers had been remade by their own tools.

I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons.

Why not teach him a trade?" Pinye says. "Americans work with their hands.

American Precision Museum, in Windsor, Vermont

Devant le sac de paille, rempli de pelotes de laine et d'un tricot inachevé, devant son buvard, ses ciseaux, son dé, l'émotion nous a submergées. C'est connu le pouvoir des objets : la vie s'y pétrifie, plus présente qu'en aucun de ses instants.

El virtuosismo en todo arte consiste en la capacidad de salirse de sí mismo

For the love of his art

It can be said that one slip of point of view by a writer can hurt a story badly, and several slips can be fatal.' Stein on Writing

A good song is like a mannequin - its form makes sense, but there's no life. There should be memorable melody, thoughtful lyric, appropriate arrangement.

Make something new with your life, with your own mind and hands.'

Life may as properly be called an art as any other.

A flawless cup: how delicate and fine The flowing curve of every jewelled line! Look, turn it up or down, 'tis perfect still-- But holds no drop of life's heart-warming wine.

Don't make the mistake of believing it's enough to reproduce the realities of life.... The object of art is to give life a shape, and to do it by every conceivable artifice.

Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.

Writing is my passion and burns in me like a fire. I'm always writing and honing my skills to feed the flames.

It's easy to write a sentence, paragraph, or book. What's difficult is writing the best sentence, paragraph, or book, you can write.

Sculpture is not the mere cutting of the form of anything in stone; it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very often the true form, in the marble, would not be in the least like itself.

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?

There is hardly anything in the world that some man can't make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.