Carvings Quotes & Sayings

Showmen's Rest was truly something to behold. Throughout the entire yard, statues and carvings of elephants, clowns, and tight-rope walkers danced on the gray and white surfaces of tombstones and grave-markers. For the first time, Michael got the feeling that the men and women who'd been buried there were probably really happy with their final resting place. It was a touching tribute, one that honored their passion in life and that had been constructed out of love and respect. — Jacqueline E. Smith

The foolish are like ripples on water, For whatsoever they do is quickly effaced; But the righteous are like carvings upon stone, For their smallest act is durable. — Horace

Culture is the heritage of us all. some may be more interested than others in the treasures of the past, but no one can fail to take a pride in his country's participation in the story of mankind, as represented in carvings, sculpture, music, paintings and the other arts. And there is a personal commitment to this, for no man can really say he is alone: we are all joined through our identity, with the cultures which are part of the mainstream of life — Simon Kapwepwe

The cold hoarfrost glistened on the tombstones, and sparkled like rows of gems, among the stone carvings of the old church. The snow lay hard and crisp upon the ground; and spread over the thickly-strewn mounds of earth, so white and smooth a cover, that it seemed as if corpses lay there, hidden only by their winding sheets. — Charles Dickens

What profusion is there in His work! When trees blossom there is not a single breastpin, but a whole bosom full of gems; and of leaves they have so many suits that they can throw them away to the winds all summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has He reared in the forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore by tremulous music; and in the heavens above, how do stars seem to have flown out of His hand faster than sparks out of a mighty forge! — Henry Ward Beecher

Pillars arched above them, and Max stared at the worn carvings, the high stone walls, the thick candles that dripped from suspended iron wheels. His skin went cold and clammy. Rain wept against the stained glass windows. The space around him was vast and terrifying; thick gnarled columns trailed off into the gloom. In the hushed silence nothing moved. — Christine Brodien-Jones

Besides, if there were no dragons of flesh and blood and fire, whence would come the idea for these stone carvings? — Robin Hobb

Hunting is the noblest sport yet devised by the hand of man. There were mighty hunters in the Bible, and all the caves where the cave men lived are full of carvings of assorted game the head of the house drug home. If you hunt to eat, or hunt for sport for something fine, something that will make you proud, and make you remember every single detail of the day you found him and shot him, that is good too. — Robert Ruark

When you do try to picture the boys who do ask you out, they're absolutely featureless, like old carvings eroded by centuries of rain and wind. — Mary Karr

In my light-headedness and fatigue, which made me feel drastically cut off from myself and as if I were observing it all at a remove, I walked past candy shops and coffee shops and shops with antique toys and Delft tiles from the 1800s, old mirrors and silver glinting in the rich, cognac-colored light, inlaid French cabinets and tables in the French court style with garlanded carvings and veneerwork that would have made Hobie gasp with admiration - in fact the entire foggy, friendly, cultivated city with its florists and bakeries and antiekhandels reminded me of Hobie, not just for its antique-crowded richness but because there was a Hobie-like wholesomeness to the place, like a children's picture book where aproned tradespeople swept the floors and tabby cats napped in sunny windows. But there was much too much to see, and — Donna Tartt

Good stuff!" [Knud] said. "All organic, of course! All fresh! We take care of the earth here! You like smoked herring? You will. Of course you will! I work in iron, though I have also done some of these wood carvings. All of my work is based on traditional Danish art. I am a Viking! Eat! — Maureen Johnson

Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

'Buncha Losers' comedy is one of those homegrown American art forms, up there with infomercials and Elvis-shaped soap carvings. No other civilization could have invented it. The French took a stab with Sartre's 'No Exit,' but then they had to ruin it with a lesson at the end. — Rob Sheffield

At some indeterminate point in their life cycles, they cause themselves to be placed in artificial stone or wooden cocoons, or chrysalises. They have an idea that they will someday emerge from these in an altered state, which they symbolize with carvings of themselves with wings. However, we did not observe that any had actually done so. — Margaret Atwood

Crude carvings, Alviri work. Kenjak felt a small surge of pride that the Dvergiri had never produced something so ugly. Since — K. Eason

Do it, Octavian" She ghosted the tips of her fingers along the hem of his shirt. "Touch me."
He growled low in his throat, his forehead dropping another inch toward her shoulder, his hair tickling the side of her face. "Be my angel, Riley, not my siren. Don't tempt me."
Moistening her lips with a sweep of her tongue, Riley glided her fingers over his belt, tracing the strip of leather to the silver buckle in the center. She felt rather than heard his deep inhalation and the tremor that raked his powerful body. Driven by his surrender, she used two fingers to walk over the square carvings etched into his abdomen, biting her lip to stop the grin that pulled when he groaned.
"I want to be both for you, Octavian," she whispered, letting her lips brush the curve of his shoulder. — Airicka Phoenix

Busts, carvings, engravings, and symbols of King Ludwig's — Chris Colfer

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water. — Amy Tan

Nonethless it had been a castle, with all that this implies: it had had towering walls and turrets, beams as great as trees, arched doorways wide enough for processions to pass through, ceilings so cavernous that owls nested in them. It had had wings and ramparts and thin windows from which to shoot arrows, internal courtyards, banquet rooms, hidden doors, secret passages. It had had a chapel and, in its bowels, a dungeon. It housed sculptures and paintings, tapestries and cushions, carpets and carvings, its fortressed heart had been clad in glit, silver, glass, gold, damask, ivory, ermine. — Sonya Hartnett

I'm fascinated by anything that deals with the unexplained. I love any show that totally makes me want to know more. How did they build these pyramids? Why did they find these carvings that look like spaceships? — Elena Satine

Religious figures, gargoyles, and grotesques, she though, looked fine on Gothic cathedrals, but she'd always spent more time looking at the murals inside the buildings than the carvings outside.
So why did this one seem to have captured all her attention? — Christine Warren

There is a legend of an artist who long sought for a piece of sandalwood, out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood which was destined for the fire. He obeyed and produced a masterpiece from a log of common firewood. Many of us lose great opportunities in life by waiting to find sandalwood for our carvings, when they really lie hidden in the common logs that we burn. — Orison Swett Marden

I say, Peter," whispered Edmund. "Look at those carvings on the walls. Don't they look old? And yet we're older than that. When we were last here, they hadn't been made."
"Yes," said Peter. "That makes one think. — C.S. Lewis

From "Her Kind"
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind. — Anne Sexton

...intricate stone carvings and wood trim gave the law school an almost medieval feel. You'd even sometimes hear that we went to HLS (Hogwarts Law School). — J.D. Vance

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind. — Anne Sexton

I would like to go to Kalimantan island in Sumatra to see the carvings and longhouse sculptures. I've also always wanted to look at the wood carvings along the Sepik River in New Guinea. — Antony Gormley

Japan and Hong Kong are steadily whittling away at the last of the elephants, turning their tusks (so much more elegant left on the elephant) into artistic carvings. In much the same way, the beautiful furs from leopard, jaguar, Snow leopard, Clouded leopard and so on, are used to clad the inelegant bodies of thoughtless and, for the most part, ugly women. I wonder how many would buy these furs if they knew that on their bodies they wore the skin of an animal that, when captured, was killed by the medieval and agonizing method of having a red-hot rod inserted up its rectum so as not to mark the skin. — Gerald Durrell

Every race of people since time began who have attempted to describe God by words or painting, or by carvings, have conveyed their idea that the God who made them and shaped their destinies was symbolized in themselves ... — Henry McNeal Turner

And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on. — Ray Bradbury

Yet here apparently on this stifling summer afternoon was the eye of Mr. Flay at the outer keyhole of the Hall of the Bright Carvings, and presumably the rest of Mr Flay was joined on behind it. — Mervyn Peake

Ice shelves in general have episodic carvings and there can be large icebergs breaking off - I'm talking 100km or 200km long - every 10 or 20 or 50 years. — Ian Allison

How do we imagine a great love?
Perhaps something along the lines of Gone with the Wind or Titanic is what comes to mind. But those aren't really about love itself, but about a situation. Everything becomes more grand when it takes place in the context of a civil war, a shipwreck, or natural catastrophe. But that is like judging the painting by the frame. That the Mona Lisa should be judged a masterpiece largely because of the carvings that surround it.
Love is love. In the dramatic stories, the people involved are physically willing to give up their lives for each other, but that is exactly what happens in the great but everyday love also. You give your lives to each other the whole way and every day, until death. — John Ajvide Lindqvist

being the key word there." Her grin took the sting out of her words. Juan chuckled, patting her on the head. "You're getting more and more like your mother every day." Tilting her head, she batted her eyelashes several times. "You mean intelligent and beautiful?" "Mouthy and obstinate." He pointed at the carvings on the wall. "Whether you like it or not, this curse could mean trouble. — Ann Charles

He was part of us and when he died all the actions stopped dead, and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. i've never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million actions the night he passed on. — Ray Bradbury

There were more recent markings as well-initials scratched over the pictographs, some with dates. people were always wanting to announce their existence to the world in a way that would surpass the ages, creating some sort of immortality. For all Karigan knew, the more ancient carvings were just another incarnation of such an urge. — Kristen Britain

Throughout our youth, whenever we had a dispute, Li Wei and I would apologize to each other by exchanging gifts. Mine would be in the form of drawings, crudely done with whatever natural supplies I could find. His would always be carvings. There was only one time the exchange didn't happen, the day I told him I was accepting the apprentice position and would never be able to marry him. — Richelle Mead

I didn't know that there was such a thing as butter carving. But then, I poked around a little bit. A quick Google search will show you 55,000 images of butter carvings, and they're extraordinary. — Ty Burrell