"patrick conroy" wrote in message
...
The fun I had experienced in making things as a
boy was magnified a hundredfold when I began
making things as a man. There is in manufacturing a
creative joy that only poets are supposed to know. Some
day I'd like to show a poet how it feels to design
and build a railroad locomotive.
- Walter P. Chrysler, Life of An American Workman (1937)



Here's another one I've always liked... he was writing about software
development (teaching that is my job), but it applies just as much to
woodworking (my sanity check):
First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud
pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own
design.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people.
Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful.

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of
interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing
out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning.

Fourth is the joy of always learning. In one way or another the problem is
ever new, and its solver learns something.

Fred Brooks on "Why Is Programming Fun?"