#crafts

At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that — the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, train himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance. That is, to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is ... curiosity to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does. And if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got that or not. [Press conference, University of Virginia, May 20, 1957] ↗

— William Faulkner

#craft #craftsmanship #creative-writing #learning-by-doing #talent

One succeeds in obtaining an equivalent production at a lower price by improving the arts, trades and agriculture and by developing the physical and moral qualities of workers, farmers and craftsmen. ↗

— Antoine Lavoisier

#arts #craftsmen #developing #equivalent #farmers

With my daughter, we do arts and crafts, we read a lot, we listen to music, and we cut the strings off balloons and bounce them around after birthday parties. ↗

— Lisa Loeb

#around #arts #balloons #birthday #bounce

I was once fired as opening act for Seals and Crofts because I got loaded and introduced them as Arts and Crafts. ↗

— George Miller

#arts #because #crafts #fired #got

Acting is the most personal of our crafts. The make-up of a human being - his physical, mental and emotional habits - influence his acting to a much greater extent than commonly recognized. ↗

— Lee Strasberg

#being #commonly #crafts #emotional #extent

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. ↗

— Louis Nizer

#brain #craftsman #hands #heart #his

There are several ways to perform almost any act - an efficient, workable, artistic way and a careless, indifferent, sloppy way. Care and artistry are worth the trouble. They can be a satisfaction to the practitioner and a joy to all beholders. ↗

— Helen Nearing

#craftsmanship #life

The instruction here is not for every kind of writer - not for the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno or the cheaper sort of sci-fi - though it is true that what holds for the most serious kind of fiction will generally hold for junk fiction as well. (Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It requires an authentic junk mind. Most creative-writing teachers have had the experience of occasionally helping to produce, by accident, a pornographer. The most elegant techniques in the world, filtered through a junk mind, become elegant junk techniques.) ↗

— John Gardner

#books #craft #craftsmanship #fiction #genre-fiction

[N]othing about a book is so unmistakable and so irreplaceable as the stamp of the cultured mind. I don't care what the story is about or what may be the momentary craze for books that appear to have been hammered out by the village blacksmith in a state of intoxication; the minute you get the easy touch of the real craftsman with centuries of civilisation behind him, you get literature. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#craft #craftsmanship #creative-process #crudeness #culture

Potter is jealous of potter, and craftsman of craftsman; and the poor have a grudge against the poor, and the poet against the poet. ↗

— Hesiod

#craftsman #grudge #jealous #poet #poor