Workmanlike Quotes & Sayings

Be not cheap or mediocre in desiring. — Ezra Pound

Two avenues of approach to these rewards lie open to the ambitious fictioneer. On the one hand, he may throw all intelligible standards of merit to the winds, and devote himself to manufacturing new stories that are frankly bad, trusting to the fact that nine persons out of ten are utterly devoid of esthetic sense and hence unable to tell the bad from the good. And on the other hand, he may take stories, or parts of stories that have been told before, or that, in themselves, are scarcely worth the telling, and so encrust them with the ornaments of wit, of shrewd observation, of human sympathy and of style
in brief, so develop them
that readers of good taste will forget the unsoundness of the material in admiration of the ingenious and workmanlike way in which it is handled. — H.L. Mencken

You must be classic. Put yourselves before the model in a workmanlike spirit. — Andre Lhote

You just get better with age. You learn yourself and the league. I'm starting to understand more about hitting every year. — Derrek Lee

Yo, cop. We're heading for Screamer's. You wanna come?
Butch looked up at the doorway. Vishous was in the hall with Rhage and Phury behind him. The vampires had expectant looks on their faces, like they honestly wanted to hang with him.
Butch found himself grinning like the new kid who didn't have to sit alone at lunch after all. — J.R. Ward

As far as we know, we're the only intelligent, technological civilization ever to develop, in the entire universe. There's complex life all over the place, but we're still basically unique. We have a fucking duty to preserve that. At all costs." Laurence — Charlie Jane Anders

I went closer this time and touched him. He let out a deafening shriek, as if something had pierced into his heart. I held his hand and sat there, admiring the intricate network of life on them. The creases and folds in his body were testament to the cruelty that he had been subjected to in this world. The watery eyes screamed of the pain, the agonising wait to leave this godforsaken place forever, that had given him nothing but pleadings for mercy. — Ashay Abbhi

Be a fearless cook! Try out new ideas and new recipes, but always buy the freshest and finest ingredients, whatever they may be. Furnish your kitchen with the most solid and workmanlike equipment you can find. Keep your knives ever sharp and - toujours bon appetit! — Julia Child

Well," said Lestrade, "I've seen you handle a good many cases, Mr. Holmes, but I don't know that I ever knew a more workmanlike one than that. We're not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow, there's not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad to shake you by the hand. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I keep trying, and manage some workmanlike stuff that doesn't require inspiration, and then I check my phone, check my email, go on Facebook. I read other people's posts, make jaunty comments, flitter away the time, profane the time. — Deborah Meyler

Until you guys own your own souls you don't own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may - until that time comes, I have the right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until I'm sure you won't do him more harm than you'll do the truth good. Or until I'm hauled before somebody that can make me talk. — Raymond Chandler

My movies are unadorned, they're not particularly fancy, I think they're kind of workmanlike in some ways, focusing on the writing and the acting. — Ben Affleck

Level 5 leaders display a workmanlike diligence - more plow horse than show horse. — James C. Collins

Everything has its natural balance, and how would you know you were happy it you weren't sad sometimes? Or feel healthy if you were never ill? — Lucinda Riley

Painting, like any art, comprises a technique, a workmanlike handling of material, but the accuracy of a tone and the fictitious combination of effects depend entirely on the choice made by the artist. — Paul Cezanne

It's the idea that when you say 'actress', people think of an airy, floaty, no-brain person, which of course you can't be if you are an actor. It is an unfortunate word, which is why, for a time, I hung on to 'actor', because it just seemed more workmanlike, you know, like you say 'woman doctor' not 'doctoress'. — Miranda Richardson

Paul McCartney and John Lennon would often write a song a day, so I have the same workmanlike philosophy. — Jason Mraz

I think you're wonderful too, Hal! Stephan said, in a workmanlike approximation of Ophelia's breathless, admiring tones. The crew laughed even harder.
Lydia snorted through her nose. — John Flanagan

The things you can take with you: Love, Trust, Respect, Joy,.
The things you leave behind: Everything else. — Robert Charles Waldron

God is the only one who can make the valley of trouble a door of hope. — Catherine Marshall

One hundred years ago, everyone could have personal privacy. You and your friend could walk into an empty field, look around to see that no one else was nearby, and have a level of privacy that has forever been lost. As Whitfield Diffie has said: No right of private conversation was enumerated in the Constitution. I don't suppose it occurred to anyone at the time that it could be prevented — Bruce Schneier

I'm a workmanlike writer. I show up every day and treat it like a job. The old rule that writing is like any other job, the first rule is that you must show up. I'm at the keyboard from 9 to 4 every day. — Justin Cronin

At the root of many a woman's failure to become a great cook lies her failure to develop a workmanlike regard for knives. — Robert Farrar Capon

Nowhere was the airport's charm more concentrated than on the screens placed at intervals across the terminal which announced, in deliberately workmanlike fonts, the itineraries of aircraft about to take to the skies. These screens implied a feeling of infinite and immediate possibility: they suggested the ease with which we might impulsively approach a ticket desk and, within a few hours, embark for a country where the call to prayer rang out over shuttered whitewashed houses, where we understood nothing of the language and where no one knew our identities. — Alain De Botton

Socialist endeavour of the Fabian type would not have amounted to anything at any other time. But it did amount to much during the three decades preceding 1914, because things and souls were ready for that kind of message and neither for a less nor for a more radical one. Formulation and organization of existing opinion were all that was needed in order to turn possibilities into articulate policy, and this "organizing formulation" the Fabians provided in a most workmanlike manner. They were reformers. The spirit of the times made socialists of them. They were genuine socialists because they aimed at helping in a fundamental reconstruction of society which in the end was to make economic care a public affair. — Joseph Alois Schumpeter

Certainly no one on-site asked for my opinion, but I have always felt there should be no leftovers. It's untidy, and it shows a lack of a real workmanlike spirit. — Jeff Lindsay