“There is a small, material, mechanical part in every work of man, which true, original inspiration scorns in its ardent moments of rapture.”

Original: Hay una parte mecánica, pequeña y material en todas las obras del hombre, que la primitiva, la verdadera inspiración desdeña en sus ardientes momentos de arrebato. — Bécquer distinguishes the mysterious impulse of inspiration from the later mechanical labour of making art. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

• Craft
• Creation
• Inspiration

“One half of his business is the discovery of the truth, and the other half its representation.”

Defining the twin scientific and artistic tasks of the historian · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Craft
• Truth

“If there is any kitchen in Parnassus, my Muse has surely officiated there as a woman of all work, and an aproned waiter.”

A wry, self-deprecating summary of a long working life spent turning domestic duty into verse · Autobiography, Letters of Life

• Craft
• Humility
• Work

“A poem is a small (or large) machine made out of words.”

Poetry as a precise, functional construction rather than ornament · Essay, Selected Essays of William Carlos Williams

• Craft
• Poetry
• Structure

“It is not enough to feel deeply; one must also learn how to give form to feeling.”

Emphasising craft as the means by which emotion becomes art. · Essay

• Craft
• Emotion
• Form

“I myself, Andalusian, Sevillian to the marrow—from there I come, and my parents and grandparents before me—sing my own feelings in the style of my land, with no aim but to ease them or exalt them, as they pain or please me.”

Original: Yo mismo, andaluz, sevillano hasta la médula (de allí soy, de allí mis padres y mis abuelos), canto al estilo de mi tierra los sentimientos propios, sin otra idea que la de aliviarlos o exaltarlos, según me duelen o me complacen. — Explains his adoption of the Andalusian copla as a vehicle for direct personal feeling rather than folkloric imitation · Preface to Cante hondo, 1912 (Spanish)

• Craft
• Identity
• Poetry