Quotes About Craftsmanship

I kind of have my little OCD wood shed at my house where everything is just right when I go write.

A piece of sculpture has to be more than a block of wood.

I like to say we can make anything in wood.

I've always worked with different mediums whether it's melting gold to make teeth, working with wood and paint or bending sound in a music studio.

I remember that I wanted the Razor scooter, and my dad went to the garage, spent one or two days, and built one out of wood and painted it with the Colombian colors.

There's a real hunger to understand where objects come from, how artists show their understanding of materials. And there's something fascinating about watching people work, whether it's someone engraving a gun or sewing beautiful clothes together. I know that myself; I'll make a piece of furniture and feel the wood's grain talking to me.

I started off by doing everything myself, driving the truck, going to the woodshop, buying the wood, designing the furniture, cutting it out, making it myself, finishing it, polishing it, and delivering it, and writing the invoice and writing the letters, doing the books, doing the telephone bill and everything else like that.

I have always loved wood. Every piece is different. It gets better with age and it has a certain character all of its own.

Japanese architecture is traditionally based on wooden structures that need renovating on a regular basis.

My idea of a traditional holiday - the right way to do it - goes back to the days when gift-giving meant sharing homemade things: hand-knit sweaters, carved wooden toys, smoked meats and the like.

I love the cleanness of Kaare Klint and Rud Rasmussen furniture, especially the wooden criss-cross under-bars of their sofas.

I collect old rusty hand tools and sharpen and polish them, then use them to build things out of walnut and cherry that I harvest from fallen trees in the woods.

I tell my students that with a 200-page novel, you are going to write 100 pages that don't make the final cut. See it as an opportunity, although it took me a while to enjoy that 'lost in the woods' feeling.

For me, shaping and sharpening knives is the perfect mix of a day of metal and woodwork, and seriously scratches my lifelong itch to make something with my own two hands - be it squid-and-veggie ramen or the fiberglass finish on a surfboard.

I made my final collection in college in London using Irish handwoven wool. That is how I discovered Ireland first; I just fell in love with it, really.

If I were to try to describe the way in which I write, the only word I would use without qualification is 'slowly.'

There's a great deal of stripping away; in early drafts, I may say the same thing two or three times, and each may be appropriate, but I try to pick the best and improve it. I work on sound a great deal, and I will change a word or two, revise punctuation and line breaks, looking for the sound I want.

I'm a little old-school in that I think there's some value in the classics and the steps of achieving a certain profession. If we start slanging the word 'chef' on anybody and everybody who cooks, it takes away a lot.

Before the scene, before the paragraph, even before the sentence, comes the word. Individual words and phrases are the building blocks of fiction, the genes that generate everything else. Use the right words, and your fiction can blossom. The French have a phrase for it - le mot juste - the exact right word in the exact right position.

I really enjoy finding the right word, creating a good, flowing sentence. I enjoy the rhythm of the words.

As both a fine artist and a graphic designer, I specialize in the visual presentation of words.

Mercedes does beautiful work, absolutely.

I think of myself as a journeyman actor. I've got some talent and I work hard, but people like Brando or Pacino - those people are touched by God.

Where I thrive is with my hands on the keyboard or my pen on the paper. One of the things I get to do is I get to rewrite. I rewrite, and I work hard on my scripts. You can rewrite until you're 'perfect,' and that's something that's safe for me.