Quotes About Craftsmanship

Look, I'm not odd. I'm just trying to be an actor; not a movie star, an actor.

I liked how 'Star Wars' felt both old and new. I even built a model of R2-D2, taking about two months mixing two kits to make one that looked just like the real thing. I'm the kind of person who gets really into it when I do something like that.

Chefs don't become chefs just to earn stars - that's not the goal.

All of the people who work in the kitchen with me go out into the forests and on to the beach. It's a part of their job. If you work with me you will often be starting your day in the forest or on the shore because I believe foraging will shape you as a chef.

I revise constantly, as I go along and then again after I've finished a first draft. Few of my novels contain a single sentence that closely resembles the sentence I first set down. I just find that I have to keep zapping and zapping the English language until it starts to behave in some way that vaguely matches my intentions.

Filmmaking is finding a piece of granite and you start to chip away and then you have the shape of a head, the shape of the arm, you can see the shape of the face and the face starts to gather character. You have to find it.

For me, writing a novel is more like digging a well than climbing a mountain - some heroic thing where I set out to conquer. I just sit quietly for a few years, and then it starts to become something.

First and foremost, it's got to be on the page. It starts with the writing.

I can't sculpt. But if I were a sculptor, as you start to get something that actually looks like what you want, then it starts to be fun. That's the way I find writing.

Our original mission and values consisted of four simple words that formed our foundation: 'We make great games.' We crafted that statement before we had even released our first game, but we were committed to living up to it.

To craftsmanship we shall add statesmanship in the capitol of peace.

I enjoy going out to the plants, the factories where just some sub-element maybe of the orbiter or the space station is built. Those people take such pride in that component, and they build it to perfection, and it's just a pleasure to see that.

The painter leaves his mark. And I just put in two statues in Rhode Island that I'm working on. And I think that's going to make me last longer than me.

I take pride in lyrics. I take pride in music and staying on beat and being on key.

Stories of all lengths and depths come from different parts of the cave. For a novel, you must lay in mental, physical and spiritual provision as for a siege or for a time of hectic explosions, while a short story is, or can be, a steady, timed flame like the lighting of a blow lamp on a building site full of dry tinder.

There's a lot for screenwriters to steal from songwriters, in terms of getting to the point.

I had been attempting novels since I was 14 but always ran out of steam. High hopes, poor craftsmanship.

I try to make pieces that are durable. One of the reasons that I work in steel is durability.

America produces the world's best steel, and southwestern Pennsylvania produces the world's best steelworkers.

Denzel's all about the work. He's all about the acting. He's an actor. He'll tell you himself, 'I'm not a movie star, celebrity, something else. I'm an actor.' He steps on a set, that's what he is, and that's what he gives you. He gives his heart.

A good cook changes his knife once a year because he cuts, while a mediocre cook has to change his every month because he hacks. I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and have cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the edge is as if it were fresh from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints. The blade of the knife has no thickness. That which has no thickness has plenty of room to pass through these spaces. Therefore, after nineteen years, my blade is as sharp as ever.

Hopefully, imparting what's important to me, respect for the food and that information about the purveyors, people will realize that for a restaurant to be good, so many pieces have to come together.

As late as 1742, London hatters beat to death a man who dared shape headgear without having gone through the apprentice system.

Punctuation to the writer is like anatomy to the artist: he learns the rules so he can knowledgeably and controllédly depart from them as art requires. Punctuation is a means, and its end is: helping the reader to hear, to follow.