"Several factors besides skill are more significant in……" — Alice Weaver Flaherty

"Several factors besides skill are more significant in professional writers than in most amateurs. One is love of the surface level of language: the sound of it; the taste of it on the tongue; what it can be made to do in virtuosic passages that exist only for their own sake, like cadenzas in baroque concerti. Writers in love with their tools are not unlike surgeons obsessed with their scalpels, or Arctic sled racers who sleep among their dogs even when they don't have to."

— Alice Weaver Flaherty

Amateurs Quotes Among Quotes Arctic Quotes Baroque Quotes Besides Quotes Concerti Quotes Dog Quotes Dogs Quotes Dogs Even Quotes Exist Quotes Factors Quotes Language Quotes Level Quotes Levels Quotes Love Quotes Made Quotes More Quotes Most Quotes Obsessed Quotes One Quotes Only Quotes Own Quotes Own Sake Quotes Passages Quotes Professional Quotes Professional Writers Quotes Racers Quotes Sake Quotes Sake Like Quotes Scalpels Quotes Several Quotes Significant Quotes Skill Quotes Skills Quotes Sled Quotes Sleep Quotes Sound Quotes Surface Quotes Surface Level Quotes Surgeons Quotes Taste Quotes Their Dogs Quotes Their Own Quotes Their Own Sake Quotes Their Tools Quotes Tongue Quotes Tools Quotes Unlike Quotes Virtuosic Quotes Writers Quotes Writing Quotes

7 Quotes by Alice Weaver Flaherty

Alice Weaver Flaherty has 7 quotes on this site. A few more worth reading:

See all 7 quotes by Alice Weaver Flaherty »

More Amateurs Quotes

This quote is filed under Amateurs Quotes, one of 110 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:

I'll always be grateful to the public of intelligent amateurs. — Paul Cezanne
Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs. — Gilbert K. Chesterton
I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work. — Chuck Close
The best wood in most amateurs' bags is the pencil. — Chi Chi Rodriguez
Jet lag is for amateurs. — Dick Clark
Amateurs hack systems, professionals hack people. — Bruce Schneier
Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateurs drunks, the bores. — Charles Bukowski
It is by sitting down to write every morning that he becomes a writer. Those who do not do this… — Gerald Brenan
Amateurs... venture into scenes that a writer with more experience (and more professional concern) would bypass or eschew altogether. — Norman Mailer
None of the great players has been so incomprehensible to the majority of amateurs and even masters, as Emanuel Lasker. — Jose Raul Capablanca
No other great master has been so misunderstood by the vast majority of chess amateurs and even by many masters,… — Jose Raul Capablanca
Amateurs hope. Professional work. — Garson Kanin

See all 110 Amateurs Quotes »