Quotes About Craftsmanship

Nothing is to be called a fault in poetry, says Aristotle, but what is against the art: therefore a man may be an admirable poet, without being an exact chronologer.

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses. What he does is to subject them to treatment which ensures their having the finest colour and the sweetest scent.

The true poem is the poet's mind; the true ship is the ship-builder.

You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick, and say to yourself, when the works are laid out before you, the vowels, the consonants, the rhymes or rhythms, 'Yes, this is it. This is why the poem moves me so...' But you're back again where you began. You've back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps in the works of the poem so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in.

Modern poets mix much water with their ink.

And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer's hand...

But it is a cold, lifeless business, when you go to the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's.

You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.

The most touching epitaph I ever encountered was on the tombstone of the printer of Edinburgh. It said simply: He kept down the cost and set the type right.

An author who rewrites his own work must essentially be two people. One is the free flowing uncritical writer who creates the bulk of the material—the other is the extremely critical editor whose aim it is to make the book as good as it can become.

There are elements of intrinsic beauty in the simplification of a house built on the log cabin idea.

First, there is the bare beauty of the logs themselves with their long lines and firm curves. Then there is the open charm felt of the structural features which are not hidden under plaster and ornament, but are clearly revealed, a charm felt in Japanese architecture.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.

Yo quisiera forjar para cada uno de vosotros una maravillosa estrofa tejida de frases exquisitas, en la que os pudiérais envolver con orgullo, como en un manto de púrpura. Yo quisiera poder cincelar la forma que ha de conteneros, como se cincela el vaso de oro que ha de guardar un preciado perfume.

All gut strings. That's just the first kind of guitar I played, it was a nylon string guitar. And to me, it's the purest form of guitar making, and I just enjoy doing it.

true art, be it painting or novel or drama or music, selects and arranges.

A writer's brush is a warrior's bow, the letters it shapes are arrows that must hit the mark on the page. The calligrapher is an archer, or a general on a battlefield. Someone wrote that long ago. She feels that way this morning. She is at war.

The whole thing starts with a single knot and needles. A word and pen. Tie a loop in nothing. Look at it. Cast on, repeat the procedure till you have a line that you can work with. It's a pattern made of relation alone, my patience, my rhythm, till empty bights create a fabric that can be worn, if you're lucky and practised. It's never too late to pick up dropped stitches... (from "How to Knit a Poem")

Old Herriot may be limited in some respects, but by God, he can wrap a cat.

Production masters material; service submits to it.

I've been working hard on [Ulysses] all day, said Joyce. Does that mean that you have written a great deal? I said. Two sentences, said Joyce. I looked sideways but Joyce was not smiling. I thought of [French novelist Gustave] Flaubert. You've been seeking the mot juste? I said. No, said Joyce. I have the words already. What I am seeking is the perfect order of words in the sentence.

Oftwhile balbulous, mithre ahead, with goodly trowel in grasp and ivoroiled overalls which he habitacularly fondseed...

There is an art in lighting a fire. We have the liberal arts and we have the useful arts. This is one of the useful arts.

We have the liberal arts and we have the useful arts.