Quotes About Craft

All novelists must form their personal pacts in some way with the slowness of their craft. There are some who demand of themselves a 'rate of production,' for whom it's a matter of pride to complete, say, a book every year.

I'm just a human whose skill is making music.

It doesn't matter to me where am I going. Language is not a barrier for me, I can go anywhere with my craft, so why not Hollywood?

As much as I like being part of commercial films that give me visibility with a wide audience, and love being the glamourous girl, at the end of the day, I am an actor, and nothing can be more satisfying than being appreciated for my craft.

Bengal's indigenous art and craft is widely popular throughout the world.

I've been a radio reporter for ten years, and if I learned anything from my time at 'This American Life,' it's how to craft a narrative so that even if the ending is ambiguous, it is somehow satisfying.

I try not to have actors in mind when I write because the tendency then is to be influenced by either their last performance or your favourite of their performances.

Me writing about tennis is like a baker baking bread.

I read a handful of memoirs to get a sense of what the genre meant. I needed to learn the fundamentals of the craft. I had never written a word of narrative. What is a tense shift, what is point of view? I didn't know any of it.

In fiction, you learn about pacing and how to build tension - which is something you want in a really good nonfiction feature article as well.

With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed.

There's no such thing as The Method. The term 'method-acting' is so much nonsense. There are many methods, many techniques.

I love what I do. And in the true sense, from my training, I try to create a character each time. It is something I do. But I don't want that term to limit what I can do. I prefer people to say to me, 'You're one of my favorite actors,' rather than 'You're one of my favorite character actors.' It sounds like a slam.

I was crazy into performing when I was younger. I was obsessed with the craft of acting, and theatre, and stage. You know the term 'theatre geek?' I am the extreme theatre geek.

You have to believe in yourself. You have to go out there and love what you are and who you know you are in terms of your craft.

Sometimes reading scripts is terrible.

My sewing skills are terrible!

I really don't know what I'm doing... I don't. It's terrible. I go in there and I learn how to be like the character and do the best I can, and that's all I really do.

I find talking about acting very boring, having to come out with platitudes about how terribly nice everyone is. I would much rather just do it.

A terrific exercise is to take a paragraph of someone's writing who has a really strong style, and using their structure, substitute your own words for theirs, and see how they achieved their effects.

I was terrified of being on stage, and I had to work very hard at a craft to get past that.

Directing was a great experience, but it's terrifying to have the responsibility of carving up the other actors' performances.

I feel no terror when I'm acting. There's no tension. It's just a part.

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.