Quotes About Craftsmanship

I look at making a record and being in a recording studio as more of a craft; You have to be so much more careful and play simpler.

No photographer is as good as the simplest camera.

As a writer, you're always trying to say the best thing. You're always thinking about what's the best thing to say, and what's the hardest way to say it, and what's the best line? Sometimes the best line is the simplest line. Sometimes the best line is the line that evokes more feeling than actual wordsmithing.

The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.

Simplicity is the key for me. I can't write clever songs; I just can't do it.

There are elements of intrinsic beauty in the simplification of a house built on the log cabin idea.

The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work.

The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.

The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come. The professional is sly. He knows that by toiling beside the front door of technique, he leaves room for genius to enter by the back.

We master the technique of our jobs.

No matter what a writer or artist may tell you, they have no clue what they're doing before they do it—and, for the most part, while they're doing it.

So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.

The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it. He recognizes the contributions of those who have gone before him. He apprentices himself to them. The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.

The Muse honors the working stiff.

The shape she loved was a triangle. Always black. Mauma put black triangles on about every quilt she sewed.

That was the thing mauma and I loved, our time with the quilts.

One time, that true brass thimble.

Winemaking should be a mystery with a hint of magic.

laid out the quill, ink, sand, and paper.

To be an artist or a writer is to be this weird thing - a hand worker in an era of mass production.

The writer must be four people: 1) The nut, the obsede 2) The moron 3) The stylist 4) The critic. 1 supplies the material; 2 lets it come out; 3 is taste; 4 is intelligence.

Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay

I had brought something out of the earth, and it was used to make something beautiful.

She passed out plates loaded with her signature melt-away brisket crusted with the smoky candy of the fire, links she'd crafted in partnership with a sustainable ranch up near Point Reyes, butter-dipped smoked portobellos, and impossibly tender ribs smothered in her artisanal sauces. Her best sides were on display---cornbread, moist as pudding, from her mother's private recipe collection, beans and greens, peppery jicama slaw, and her signature hummingbird cake for dessert.