Johannes Brahms Quotes

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

That talk of inspiration is sheer nonsense; there is no such thing. It is a mere matter of craftsmanship.

What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.

There's nothing more special than intellect and labour that makes painting work. There's no magic there; it's information, and it's work.

Anything is an art if you do it at the level of an art.

I want to create. I think that's the one word I can grow on.

When you are an artist, you want your audience to think it's effortless and easy.

The writer's secret is not inspiration - for it is never clear where it comes from - it is his stubbornness, his patience.

The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman's heart.

An artist is not special. An artist is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special.

Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

Talent works, genius creates.

You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice.

We must be able to inspire. That's my goal in acting.

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.

I find inspiration in everything.

Somebody informed me recently that the key to every art, from writing to gardening to sculpture, is creativity. I beg to differ.

That is the way a great master carpenter feels, or an architect or composer or anyone who creates anything - people want to be appreciated for what they have done.

Technique is what you fall back on when you run out of inspiration.

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.

I don't believe in writer's block.

Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.