Quotes About Craftsmanship

Writers need their totems, their altars. Mine, I feel, share the same randomness and utility of those belonging to painters I know, who are relentlessly visual and even poetic.

The thrill of doing visual effects doesn't exist.

I like doing clay work. It's different from drawing on a page because you have something to mold into different shapes. It's quite visual, it's a thing you can hold and feel, and that makes it different from drawing.

I was a painter before I was a writer, so I was always a visual artist. And my writing, to me, was always visual.

Visual effects have always been a part of this art form. And CG is simply a tool on the filmmaker's tool belt to tell a story, but when the end result is bad - maybe it's not the tool's fault.

You can visualize, and you can try to trick yourself into thinking a certain way. There's all kinds of things you can do to try to get in the right spot mentally. But at the end of the day, to have real confidence, you've got to be doing good at your craft.

When you make something, cleaning it out of structural debris is one of the most vital things you do.

I never, my producer never, we never let myself just sing. We were always trying to get the perfect vocal.

I always felt each instrumental and vocal inflection had to be special... I'd spend almost as much time on those as I'd spend on the song itself.

I'm interested in creating a little sound world for songs, really crafting it, building it, and making it like a little doll's house with little things inside it, staircases and rooms and everything kind of relates to everything else. I've never seen it as drums, bass, guitar and vocals in very separate spaces.

The records I make, I'm there from the writing of the first note through the click tracks to the miking of the drums to the editing of everything to the production to the vocals to the artwork.

I think technical education and vocational skills and having a trade mean something.

I think the voice is an underrated instrument these days and it's easy to make up for lack of ability with effects. I think sometimes people are more wowed with effects than core craftsmanship. Strong voices are not as common as they used to be.

For all of my class projects, I somehow turned it into a commercial parody or put on plays. My whole thing was seeing things from a big picture, from beginning to middle to end: making a costume, doing voices, writing a script, making it all happen.

You write differently in each book. It may appear to be similar to readers, but you're a different writer in each book because you haven't approached that subject before. And every subject brings out a different prose strain in you. Fundamentally, yes, you're contained as one writer. But you have various voices. Like a good actor.

Capucci was the biggest schooling I had. It wasn't just about the technical knowledge, such as color and volume, but also about the secret rules, and the beautiful codes of respect between the atelier and the master.

The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged.

It's easy to assume that just because you make something in small volumes, not using many tools, that there is integrity and care - that is a false assumption.

I'm a working writer; this is my job. So it matters to me that it's good. I sweat over every word. I don't just vomit this stuff up. It's agony. The only thing that comes close is childbirth, except it's like being in labor for eighteen months.

Films have become much more professional. It is now a secure place for people.

Loro Piana is all about seeking quality materials.

I still think it's really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness.

I work very hard at each story, at every sentence.

Fall into your sentences; enjoy writing them. Love the world you are creating.