Quotes About Craft

Mixologist, n. person who complicates pouring alcohol.

An artist cannot talk about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

The thing about glitter is, if you get it on you be prepared to have it on you forever because glitter is the herpes of craft supplies.

No one can write perfect English and keep it up through a stretch of ten chapters. It has never been done.

Like any craft, writing is mastered by practice and patience, and if one has any "knack" for it at all, that very knack—paradoxically—can explicate everything under the sun but itself.

On occasion I read Raymond Chandler although I have certain reservations about this author. Chandler, while obviously a master of his craft, makes overuse of simile, to my annoyance.

And he showed them, riding on the Thames at the foot of the dock, a small double-ended, single-masted open shallop twenty-three feet long with eight ominous oars. "You, Edmund Steed, jump in," Smith commanded, and a fair young man of twenty-five, dressed in the clothes of a scholar, obeyed. Soon all seven were aboard manning their oars while Captain Smith, barely five feet tall, stood approvingly on the dock, watching the little craft adjust to the weight

You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.

I'm still learning how to write. I don't know what technique is." —

Writing for me must be a very controlled exercise, formed by passions and hopes.

I loved my country, but I could not respect it, could not, upon my soul, be reconciled to my country as it was. And I loved my work, had great respect for the craft which I was compelled to study, and wanted it to have some human use. It was beginning to be clear to me that these two loves might, never, in my life, be reconciled: no man can serve two masters.

Future writers hide inside books and snort up the craft by enjoyment. They read and learn structure and style. Their curiosity points them to subject matter.

Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years' experience in his craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience—twenty times.

I think the writing skills of actors are sometimes underestimated.

Whether it's t-shirt and jeans or full monster suit, I'm still an actor underneath it all, and a good director is going to know that.

I think writing is the most underrated thing in Hollywood.

A novel's whole pattern is rarely apparent at the outset of writing, or even at the end; that is when the writer finds out what a novel is about, and the job becomes one of understanding and deepening or sharpening what is already written. That is finding the theme.

In terms of growing as a songwriter, I'm just a guy who understands the craft better. I understand what I want to do with it. I think that's where I've grown. Have I fully achieved that? No, but I don't think you ever do. There's always room to grow.

I think Nat's an amazing actor... He understands things about acting that most people don't.

Teaming up for Evolution, I think Batista and I credit a lot of our success to Ric Flair, but especially Triple H. He has an amazing psychology for the business. He understands how to tell a story, and you just pick his brain the best you can while riding with him. It was a great advantage for us in terms of learning our craft.

I understood the craft of photography when done by an artist is art.

Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket... the least understood and the least noticed.

I don't think people really understood what I did. And you know, in my book, 'A Helluva High Note' deals with my back story, that I was a songwriter, that I spent years trying to hone my craft and being rejected and then finally becoming a successful songwriter, record executive and publisher.

Once I started writing novels, I understood how hard it was to write really good short stories.