Quotes About Craftsmanship

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.

Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That's basically the highest compliment I can give.

Is a twist less satisfying if you know it's coming? Is a twist that you can't predict symptomatic of bad construction? These are things to consider when writing.

A great textile, like the William Morris Strawberry Thief, is a piece of art, but it takes a lot of time to make a piece of art. It isn't simply design either. You have to understand the fabrics and what they can bear. You have to understand the dyeing process and how to achieve certain colors and what will make the color last through the ages. If you make a mistake, you might have to begin again.

These were his strawberries. These were birds he knew. No designer had ever used red or yellow in an indigo discharge dyeing technique before. He must have had to start over many times to get the colors right. This fabric is not just a fabric. It's the story of failure and of perseverance, of the discipline of a craftsman, of the life of an artist." Sadie caressed the

No designer had ever used red or yellow in an indigo discharge dyeing technique before. He must have had to start over many times to get the colors right. This fabric is not just a fabric. It's the story of failure and of perseverance, of the discipline of a craftsman, of the life of an artist.

Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That's basically the highest compliment I can give.

Es menos satisfactorio un giro si se ve venir? ¿Un giro que no podemos prevenir es síntoma de mala construcción? Hay que plantearse estas cosas al escribir.

Patience was not something that came naturally to me, but in cooking it is the quintessential skill.

When I was learning the anthologist's trade many years ago, sitting at the knees—metaphorically speaking, at least—of veteran anthologists like Damon Knight and Robert Silverberg, I was taught that you should always save your strongest and best story for last.

So beer is our bread?

Send anyone claiming that their RPG activity is an art form my way, and I'll gladly stick a pin in their head and deflate it just to have the satisfaction of the popping sound that makes. One might play a game artfully, but that makes neither the game nor its play art.

Bartenders revolted against the elevator-music drinks of their elders and created noisier potions of their own. This phenomenon was exactly what was needed to make potential cocktailians rethink their craft.

Why do people choose to adulterate fine wines, beers, and spirits?

Creativty is a god who comes around only when he pleases, and it isn't very often. But when he does come around, he sits at my desk and folds his wings and I offer him whatever he wants.

As each guest entered, they were handed a long wand—actually a puppeteer's arm rod—with a bright foam butterfly attached at the end, one of the thousands put together by the Muppet Workshop over the last three days.

It takes a long time to write something that is easy to read.

This is what an artist is, she thought. This is the temperament you need to spend a whole day tinkering with a sentence, making sure that both the meaning and the music are right; to spend three or seven or ten years working on a book.

First is the sheer joy of making things. 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.

The principle is this: When you write, you make a point not by subtracting as though you sharpened a pencil, but by adding. When you put one word after another, your statement should be more precise the more you add. If the result is otherwise, you have added the wrong thing, or you have added more than was needed. Erskine

Advice for writers: if you're a writer, a real writer, a really, really real writer, like, REALLY a writer, you should not write a sentence like this one.

I put the mud on the wheel, I spun it, and I could work clay. It was a miracle. I could do clay without any thought, without any doubt. I knew nothing about clay and yet the skill came out of my hands. Clay was all I had—all that I was. Clay was all that was left of me. I was an animal that made pots.

Whether it's horses or whatever it is you do, it doesn't become an art until your soul goes into what you do.

And what sort of lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us.