The Craft Quotes

I started working on stage as a dancer when I was four; by 14 or 15, I knew I wanted to study the craft of acting. ~ Cush Jumbo

In America, where writers are preoccupied with the craft of writing, I always try to introduce this concept of the badly written good story. Turning the hierarchy around and putting passion on top and not craft, because when you just focus on craft, you can write something that is very sterile. It looks beautiful, but soulless. So I warn them that, often in writing programs, articulation and clarity are more important than what you actually say . . . And you say, "It's so well-written, but who gives a fuck?" For certain, the guy who wrote it doesn't give a fuck. It's not something that has to do with his life; it's just something well-written and illuminating, and writing is not about that. The best stories you usually hear are stories that people feel some type of urgency about . . .

Nobody else in the world would look at writing as craftsmanship - it's totally this Protestant hardworking ethic. You go into this kind of infinite space of imagination and you fence yourself in with all kinds of laws. Why do we have to keep playing this strange game? ~ Etgar Keret

Master the craft. Write lots, even if you never intend to do anything with it. Don't delete old, unpublished, or partial manuscripts. There are lots of occasions where you may be able to use some of that work. If the writing is strong, save it for later. ~ Eric Matheny

What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king. ~ Robert E. Howard

Hip hop has always been, for us, for artists who are pure to the craft - any place overseas, whether it's Australia, any place in Asia, Germany, Africa, it becomes something where you can still go and work. Hip hop is an import culture. We're spoiled by it here. It's homegrown. ~ Talib Kweli

I never regarded my pictures as very much to be proud of, except in this, the craft, the style. ~ Douglas Sirk

The answers to making it, to me, are a lot more universal than anyone's race or gender, and center on having a tolerance for delayed gratification, a passion for the craft, and a willingness to fail. ~ Ali Wong

Rob [Tapert], myself and Bruce Campbell sat in hundreds of drive-insnot hundreds, but tens of drive-ins, watching these movies and learning how they were made, and we started to make our own in Super 8. And that's really how we got into horror films. After a while we learned to really like them, and the craft that went into them. ~ Sam Raimi

Half the rhymes you write, you're saying that you're better than the other MC. That's how we keep the craft sharp. ~ Ice-T

I love books where I can't wait to turn every page, songs that grab me the first time I hear them, and films that make me totally forget about the craft because I am totally engaged in the story. ~ John Grooters

An admonition like "The more complex you make the model, the worse the forecast gets." is equivalent to saying "Never add too much salt to the recipe." How much complexity-how much salt-did you begin with? If you want to get good at forecasting, you'll need to immerse yourself in the craft and trust your own taste buds. ~ Nate Silver

I am interested in the idea of 'taste.' And by 'taste,' I mean opinion, inspiration and the craft of creating a personality through fabric and design. ~ Olivier Theyskens

It's not a problem to be surrounded by other writers if that's the craft that you're doing. I suppose if you get obsessed with the notion of being a writer more than the writing itself, that would be bad. But I live near really smart, thoughtful people who take writing very seriously, and I can meet them for breakfast and talk books. ~ Phil Klay

Even illegal weapons have lost their panache. Zip guns and shanks were at least homemade. Where is the craft in a grade-schooler firing a magnum? What is the world coming to? It's not even bad to be a communist anymore! ~ John Waters

In Europe, I'm recognized on the street sometimes. And that's cool, because I don't have to live there and deal with it every day. Unless you're Stephen King - a great writer, by the way, and anyone who says different knows nothing about the craft - you're more likely to be recognized in America if you play in a soap opera than if you're a novelist. ~ George Pelecanos

Magic is the craft of shaping, the craft of the wise, exhilarating, dangerous - the ultimate adventure. The power of magic should not be underestimated. It works, often in ways that are unexpected and difficult to control. ~ Starhawk

I went to a seminar early in my career on the craft of storytelling by Robert McKee. It was really life altering. There are basic principles on how to craft an engaging story and he covers them well. He's got a book out, 'Story,' that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in improve their storytelling. ~ Jane Jensen

As much as I think John Coltrane belongs on the list, I think without Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, both of whom defined improvising on the tenor sax, there would not have been the evolution of the craft by John Coltrane. ~ Herbie Mann

In my aircar," said the old man, motioning Arthur to get into the craft which had settled silently next to them. "We are going deep into the bowels of the planet where even now our race is being revived from its five-million-year slumber. ~ Douglas Adams

We of the craft are all crazy. ~ Lord Byron

Those reporters, writers, photographers, and editors are the best Americans I know. They cherish the ideals of their imperfect profession and of the Republic whose freedoms, equally imperfect in practice have so often made those ideals real. They want desperately to do good, honorable work. In spite of long hours and low pay, they are insistently professional. They are also brave.

I can't ever forget that in Indochina 65 journalists were killed in the course of recording the truth about that war. . . .Reporters and photographers did not stop dying when Vietnam was over. They have been killed in Lebanon and Nicaragua, in Bosnia and Peru, and in a lot of other places where hard rain falls.

I can't believe that these good men and women died for nothing. I know they didn't. They died because they were the people chosen by the tribe to carry the torch to the back of the cave and tell the others what is there in the darkness. They died because they were serious about the craft they practiced. They died because they believed in the fundamental social need for what they did with a pen, a notebook, a typewriter, or a camera. They didn't die to increase profits for the stockholders. They didn't die to obtain an invitation to some White House dinner for a social-climbing publisher. They died for us.

As readers or journalists, we honor them when we remember that their dying was not part of a plan to make the world cheaper, baser, or dumber. They died to ~ Pete Hamill

Art with a big A makes professionals uneasy. All art is one, and there is no difference in the mystery of the craft, only in the hand and eye of the craftsman. ~ Michael Powell

Records have never really been my strong suit. I've always been a much better live act. I didn't understand the language of the studio. You sing differently in a studio. The language, the craft - it's just a whole different deal. I avoided the problem on my first record by doing a live album. ~ Jewel

Aye, it's the heart of the craft, the love and sweat that you put into it. If you think about the old tales, the magic comes from inside the person who creates it. - Conn ~ N.W. Moors

I love the craft of acting, I love learning, I love everything that comes with the new project; the whole process is totally intoxicating to me. ~ Annette Bening

The craft, the writing of a song, is about creating a story, a life story, a world within three minutes, but that's the frame, if you like, the picture frame. That fascinates me. ~ PJ Harvey

I've never put much stock in the act of arguing. Most folks I've encountered who are accomplished at the craft refuse to let the truth stand in the way of winning the debate…so what's the point. RW ~ Rob Wood

And he loved my mother. I saw him on the last days of his life lift that oil-scented right hand and enter its fingers into her ordered hair and rustle it free of its pins as if he had been offered velvet or the fur of a rare animal. Forever I hold that gesture. For me it was perhaps the last remembered pleasure belonging to him. It is the unspoiled core of whatever I know of love and family (and I have not been successful at the craft of it). Our shyness at embracing each other - it rarely happened - did not matter. I felt safe and comforted in his house. ~ Michael Ondaatje

I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system. ~ Michael Connelly

Poetry for me is a result of lyrical meditation, pre-verbal in origin, and much of the craft has to do with finding a contemporary diction that embodies, at times subverts but never betrays that pre-verbal lyrical source: the presence of song before it is sung. ~ John Allison

Well you can't teach the poetry, but you can teach the craft. ~ David Hockney

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

When I was 12 or 13, I started to watch films and understand more about the craft and that helped me to develop. But it also felt like a game, because it was fun. I mean, all of us do it when we're kids to a degree - play acting. But then I came to realise that it's a lovely way to express yourself. So, my passion for it developed as I got older. ~ Yasmin Paige

Great writers zealously learn the craft of their profession so they can release the power and the depth of their imagination and experience. ~ Leonard Bishop

Show me you care about our common tongue. Bring to your [writing] passion, deeply informed by knowledge of your subject. Stay me, not with apples and flagons, but with wit and grace, humor and intense caring about your discipline. Don't slack, don't give it a lick and a promise, don't make it evident that you posted what was 'good enough for government work,' don't try and fake it. Give it your best, your all, not for pence, but for the love of the craft.
Do these things, as these writers and scores I have not named do, bring to your work your self, your heart, your voice, motherly or youthful, lawyerly or priestly, conservative or liberal, it matters not. Do this and I and hundreds of others will return again and again to your work, not merely because we may have a burning need for a new printer or an abiding interest in college newspapers or what have you, but because we wish to spend time with your mind and voice. ~ Markham Shaw Pyle

Then said the giant, "Thou practices the craft of a kidnapper. Thou gatherest up woman and children and carriest them into a strange country, to the weakening of my master's kingdom." But now Great-Heart replied, "I am a servant of the God of Heaven; my business is to persuade sinners of repentance. I am commanded to do my endeavor to turn men, women and children, fro darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. ~ John Bunyan

A lot of people just love music, especially a lot of aspiring artists. They just want to jump in and start making music. They don't really take time to grow and appreciate the craft. ~ LeCrae

We were just speaking to your friend here about the craft of brewing potions to enhance the libido. It seems he has a wealth of knowledge regarding plants and herbs."I lowered my eyes to him, my head swimming at the only part of her greeting that I actually heard "You mean you can brew potions to increase sex drive?"She looked confused. "Well of course! We are trying to save our people from extinction, which means we must mate as often as possible. We find the task can become arduous after eight or nine couplings. The potions are what keep us going. Why, it's in the bath we're soaking in now."I thought I was having a small aneurism. "I knew it!" I shouted stupidly. "I thought I was losing my mind! ~ Alisha Basso

Theatre is done largely for the love of the craft. Television makes you famous. And films immortalize you. That's the relationship between the three. ~ Kabir Bedi

I meditated on the nature of friendship as I practiced the craft. My friends had always come from outside the mainstream. I had always been popular with the fifth column of my peers, those individuals who were princely in their solitude, lords of their own unpraised melancholy. Distrusting the approval of the chosen, I would take the applause of exiles anytime. My friends were all foreigners, and they wore their unbelongingness in their eyes. I hunted for that look; I saw it often, disarrayed and fragmentary and furious, and I approached every boy who invited me in. ~ Pat Conroy

My advice has always been to study the craft of acting if you want to be an actor. There are many great schools that teach acting. NYU being one of them. ~ Peter Facinelli

Education isn't what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes ... The power to learn is present in everyone's soul and ... the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body ... Then education is the craft concerned with doing this very thing, this turning around, and with how the soul can most easily and effectively be made to do it. it isn't the craft of putting sight into the soul. Education take for granted that sight is there but that it isn't turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it appropriately. ~ Plato

I can only surmise about what Liebling would make of today's pugilistic dark ages. In his era, fighters fought rematches of close fights, even title fights, almost automatically. Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta met six times, inconceivable for champions today. In the 1950s a quality pro thought himself underemployed if he had only eight or ten bouts a year, and the amateur scene was thriving. Nowadays pros who make a living from boxing are about as common as Yetis, and amateurs can't get enough fights to learn the rudiments of the craft. ~ A.J. Liebling

Magic has always been an element of Witchcraft, but in the Craft its techniques were practiced within a context of community and connection. ~ Starhawk

The magic of the craft has opened for me a world in which I shall confront, within two hours, the black dragons and the crowned crests of a coma of blue lightnings, and when night has fallen I, delivered, shall read my course in the starts. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Writing is the Art, re-writing the craft. ~ O'Brien Browne

You need to work at the craft of songwriting, but not only the craft. When I see people working both on themselves and the craft, and they combine those things ... I just go, That's just fabulous. ~ Fred Eaglesmith

Every book Runit hadn't written haunted him, so he understood about the mental takeover from the craft of writing. Those unwritten books, locked inside a writer's head, make an inescapable noise, like murmurs from conversation one can't quite make out blended loudly with paper pages blowing in a disturbing wind. ~ Brandt Legg

I saw a fleet of fishing boats ... I flew down almost touching the craft and yelled at them, asking if I was on the right road to Ireland. They just stared. Maybe they didn't hear me. Maybe I didn't hear them. Or maybe they thought I was just a crazy fool. ~ Charles Lindbergh

If I hadn't been a designer, I'd have been a painter. I began as a painter and learned the craft of pottery in order to support myself. ~ Eva Zeisel

Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction can be difficult, lonely job; it's like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There's plenty of opportunity for self-doubt. ~ Stephen King

I'm really proud to have been in The Craft. I will always be that chick from The Craft, no matter what I do. ~ Robin Tunney

It's the in-between, the sustenance, not just the gears and bolts that make a human. When you forget to find out how the person was built - the oil, chemistry, and the craft - you miss all the beauty. ~ Piper Payne

Jessica DuLong's elegantly written "My River Chronicles" brings the past of the Hudson River into the vivid present, and carries forward the craft of literary non-fiction with grace and energy. ~ Gay Talese

I can't stand callow amateurs who aren't sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students. ~ David Ogilvy

It helps immerse yourself in what you potentially want to do. Being involved, learning firsthand and observing the craft and absorbing all you can, makes it easier to define what you want. It will also ultimately make you a better Chef. Culinary school, or even a single class, is a great bet too. ~ Giada De Laurentiis

I went to Catholic high school, so my being in this [the craft] is not going to make my grandmother very happy. It's funny, because I was the only one who is Catholic in it. You have this thing in mass where you have to genuflect before you go into the pew, so I said you have to do this [for a scene] and they said why, and I said because you have to; I don't know why, it's a rule. Or like instinct. It's funny they set in a Catholic school. I went to St. Ignatius College Prep - "Where Modesty is our Policy." ~ Robin Tunney

Every reporter who came up in legacy media can tell you about a come-to-Jesus moment when an editor put them up against a wall and tattooed a message deep into their skull: show respect for the fundamentals of the craft, or you would not soon be part of it. ~ Mary Karr

If you go to the craft market you will see them everywhere. They represent the mix of cultures and races here in the Dominican Republic, that are the result of centuries of international commerce, colonization, conquest, and the slave trade. The facelessness means that there is no 'typical' Dominican woman. ~ Sandra Rodriguez Barron

I don't think there's any company that has the same tools as Martha Stewart Living does, and people know that. They really love the tools and, if you have the tools, you can pretty much do the craft. ~ Martha Stewart

Writers are born, not made. We can hone the craft. We need to try to encourage someone and make a dialogue, suggesting ways to do something differently or how to improve. ~ Alan Zweibel

Like a soldier, the carpenter sharpens his own tools. He carries his equipment in his tool box, and works under the direction of his foreman. He makes columns and girders with an axe, shapes floorboards and shelves with a plane, cuts fine openwork and bas reliefs accurately, giving as excellent a finish as his skill will allow. This is the craft of the carpenters. When the carpenter becomes skilled, he works efficiently and according to correct measures. When he has developed practical knowledge of all the skills of the craft, he can become a foreman himself. ~ Miyamoto Musashi

At the end of the day, if I can say that I had a career where I was able to play all different kinds of characters and I'm known as someone who is well-respected for my approach to the craft, that would be a beautiful life. ~ Adepero Oduye

It takes about ten years to make a mature dancer. The training is twofold. There is the study and practice of the craft in order to strengthen the muscular structure of the body. The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted. The movement become clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life, the law which governs its outer aspects ~ Martha Graham

Wylan!" Jesper said, taking in the cuts and rapidly forming bruises. "Saints, is all that real?"
"Anika and Keeg did a number on him."
"I wanted it to be believable," said Wylan.
"I admire your commitment to the craft," said Kaz. "Jesper, stay with Wylan. They're going to want to question him."
"I'm fine," said Wylan, though his lip was so swollen it sounded more like, "I'b fibe. ~ Leigh Bardugo

But business in a crony-capitalist society is the craft of sharks. ~ Pierce Brown

I try to stay away from the craft services table on set! That's probably why I am able to still get work in this business: I stay away from junk food. ~ Christian Slater

It's intriguing to observe so many of the outrageous prophecies, made with such biting satire years ago in the first edition, come into being through the craft of so many self-entitled egomaniacs running a global 'corpornation' for personal interest and professional profit. I had no idea then, as I now know, that I was writing with so much understatement. Honest outrage and political satire are two of the most important weapons that we have to protect infringement against our personal freedoms through oligarchy and to maintain any semblance of humanity in our democracy as our government aggressively privatizes and over-reaches at the expense of those millions whom it has sworn so dishonestly to serve and has utterly abandoned. ~ David B. Lentz

Beneath the face of anyone you ever loved for true - anyone you love, you will always love, love is not at the mercy of time and it does not recognize death, they are strangers to each other - beneath the face of the beloved, however ancient, ruined, and scarred, is the face of the baby your love once was, and will always be, for you. Love serves, then, if memory doesn't, and passion, apart from its tense relation to agony, labors beneath the shadow of death. Passion is terrifying, it can rock you, change you, bring your head under, as when a wind rises from the bottom of the sea, and you're out there in the craft of your mortality, alone. ~ James Baldwin

Every serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty. ~ Ralph Ellison

Pretty much at the age of 16, I realized acting wasn't going to be the vocation for me ... too political not enough creative control. But I loved the craft and my father wanted me to get a college degree. Seemed natural to study what I loved and Marymount Manhattan has a wonderful theatre program, I highly recommend it! A lot of what I learned there I apply to my comicbook writing and pacing. ~ Holly Golightly

When you're a writer, you have to have the passion and the skill and the craft. It's not just enough to have the passion. You've gotta have all three. ~ Harlan Ellison

The craft of the merchant is this bringing a thing where it abounds to where it is costly. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Actors in general have become very spoiled in the roles they choose these days. When I first started in this profession - about a hundred years ago in the last century - it was all about taking risks, it was about doing the job and honing the craft. ~ Brian Cox

The first historical notice that we have of the formation of a supreme controlling body of the fraternity, is in the "Gothic Constitutions" which assert that, in the year 287, St. Alban, the protomartyr of England, who was a zealous patron of the craft, obtained from Carausius, the British Emperor, "a charter for the Masons to hold a general council, and gave it the name of assembly." The record further states, that St. Alban attended the meeting and assisted in making Masons, giving them "good charges and regulations." We ~ Albert G. MacKey

The craft of photography is the key to good images. ~ Ansel Adams

We didn't know what made "great TV." We were just trying to make a living and trying hard to honor the craft we had both fallen in love with over the years. ~ Joanna Gaines

First of all, just because the Tea Party people appear to be generally uneducated, ignorant about the political process, ignorant about economics, confused about their own platform from the beginning, and indelicate when it comes to the craft of diplomacy, doesn't mean they're wrong. ~ Steven Van Zandt

And later I thought, I can't think how anyone can become a director without learning the craft of cinematography. ~ Nicolas Roeg

I remember growing up, getting the Colorado Springs Sun in the morning and the Denver Post in the afternoon, and my dad just inhaling both of them, and me waiting to get the sports page from him. I fell in love with the craft. I remember being 9 years old and playing baseball in the backyard and coming in and writing little newspaper articles for my dad. ~ Pat Forde

With a room of his own, a room at the top, he could proffer a temporary refuge to some lovely, fatigued, world-weary, sophisticated, black-turtlenecked, heavily-eyelinered girl he might lure up the stairs into his newspaper-strewn boudoir and onto his Indian-bedspreaded bed with the promise of artistic talk about the craft of writing, and the throes and torments of creation, and the need for integrity, and the temptations of selling out, and the nobility of resisting such temptations, and so forth. A promise offered with a hint of self-mockery in case such a girl might think he was pompous and cocksure and full of himself. Which he was, because at that age you have to be that way in order to crawl out of bed in the morning and sustain your faith in your own illusory potential for the next twelve hours of being awake. ~ Margaret Atwood

All writers struggle at some point with the problem of balance between authority and involvement, seduction and revelation. Specifically, beginning writers wonder how much description to employ, and more advanced writers ask how much plot is too much or too little. And there is no better place to find answers than in the Victoria's Secret catalogue--or in any ad for lingerie--where the arts of seduction and revelation are so successfully practiced. After all, the secret of the effective lingerie ad is the secret of effective storytelling--to provide, moment by moment, the illusion of imminent expose, to give the viewer (read: reader) the uncanny sense that something fundamentally compelling is always just about to be revealed. Lingerie ads and storytelling balance the veiled and the unveiled, the seen and the unseen, the shown and the about-to-be-shown. In short, it is the art of the tease, the craft of selective 'coverage,' that, not just in lingerie but in storytelling, works to enthrall. ~ Julie Checkoway

Witches are liberated from their own fears and limited thinking. In turn, their presence has the power to liberate and consciously expand others. ~ Dacha Avelin

Take the time you need to learn the craft. Then sit down and write. When you hand over your completed manuscript to a trusted reader, keep an open mind. Edit, edit, and edit again. After you have written a great query letter, go to AgentQuery.com. This site is an invaluable resource that lists agents in your genre. Submit, accept rejection as part of the process, and submit again. And, of course, never give up. ~ Kathleen Grissom

I do a lot of the stuff that I started out doing that I think any guitar player that's concerned about the craft needs to do. It's basic practicing of the basic elements. I try to practice like a well rounded regiment of things where I can kind of do whatever I wanna do and I also have to practice the actual songs to keep that under my fingers as well. ~ John Petrucci

Do your homework, study the craft, believe in yourself, and out-work everyone. ~ Justin Hires

The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century. ~ Balthus

At festivals you kind of have to play the game a bit and you have to play a lot of the big bangers but it's to me it's extra gratifying to be able to play the non-bangers and make it work. Because that's still the craft of the DJ, I think. ~ A-Trak

Much of what is written on the craft is biased in one way or another, so weed out what is useful to you and ignore the rest. I see the next few years as being crucial in the transformation of our culture away from the patriarchal death cults and toward the love of life, of nature, of the female principle. The craft is only one path among the many opening up for women, and many of us will blaze new trails as we explore the uncharted country of our own interiors. The heritage, the culture, the knowledge of the ancient priestesses, healers, poets, singers, and seers were nearly lost, but a seed survived the flames that will blossom in a new age into thousands of flowers. The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts ~~ Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be. ~ Starhawk

Strategy is the craft of the warrior. ~ Miyamoto Musashi

Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form. ~ Robert Bringhurst

An aspiring writer could be forgiven for thinking that learning to write is like negotiating an obstacle course in boot camp, with a sergeant barking at you for every errant footfall. Why not think of it instead as a form of pleasurable mastery, like cooking or photography? Perfecting the craft is a lifelong calling, and mistakes are part of the game. Though the quest for improvement may be informed by lessons and honed by practice, it must first be kindled by a delight in the best work of the masters and a desire to approach their excellence. ~ Steven Pinker

For every prescriptive idea about the craft of fiction, there's at least one writer who makes a virtue of the contrary. ~ Sarah Hall

Good writers practice. They take time to write, crafting and editing a piece until it's just right. They spend hours and days just revising. Good writers take criticism on the chin and say "thank you" to helpful feedback; they listen to both the external and internal voices that drive them. And they use it all to make their writing better. They're resigned to the fact that first drafts suck and that the true mark of a champion is a commitment to the craft. It's not about writing in spurts of inspiration. It's about doing the work, day-in and day-out. Good writers push through because they believe in what they're doing. They understand this is more than a profession or hobby. It's a calling, a vocation. ~ Jeff Goins

The kipper was in a race for it's life, and it knew it. It used all the skill its Maker had given it and drew the creature far away from the craft, to be sacrifice in the end. It was a fitting task for the kipper. But ... there is a thing about monsters. They remember. ~ Kathy Frias

Read and write with a sensitive ear. The craft of writing is very important. Practice the craft. ~ Henry Petroski

In The Craft the clockwork God of Newtonian determinism has been replaced by the quantum-aware Great Architect who is ready and willing to allow us to contribute to His malleable Plan for the cosmos. ~ Robert Lomas

The present Mr. Parslow was teaching his son the craft; the two of them and their three workmen would scramble like industrious termites over the scaffolding they'd erected at the corner of the library, or over the roof of the chapel, and haul up bright new blocks of stone or rolls of shiny lead or balks of timber. The ~ Philip Pullman

Because when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you're disrespectful to inspiration, and we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day, and they listen to that Beyonce album and they feel like it takes them to another place. ~ Kanye West

I've always been a bit of an outsider ... I just pop up, kind of. I have a life. I have children - I have three children - and I love the craft of acting; I'm dedicated to that ... that's always meant more to me than just hanging out ... I've always been kind of a weirdo in that respect, but if the role is good, I'm going to do it. ~ Ally Walker