Precision Work Quotes

I know a man who is a diamond cutter. He mows the lawn at Yankee Stadium.

Good doctors get a mechanic's pleasure in making you tick over.

I'm not a sculptor; I'm a hard-edged model maker. You give me a drawing, you give me a prop to replicate, you give me a crane, scaffolding, parts from 'Star Wars' - especially parts from 'Star Wars' - I can do this stuff all day long. It's exactly how I made my living for 15 years.

The little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour.

I've done work wearing full cold-weather gear hanging off of scientific towers in the Antarctic and the Arctic. Having to actually do small, delicate tasks on scientific equipment while you have no dexterity or tactile feedback is something that's very transferrable.

Done right, precision can help clarify, plus it's fun.

The eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star with the spiderweb of the micrometer.

I must have been born with a strong attraction toward, and possibly even an aptitude for, doing things on a small scale.

She did her work with the thoroughness of a mind which reveres details and never quite understands them.

Making duck calls is the hardest thing that we make, so there's skill involved, and they're all handmade.

I have to give props to my stunt double, who is the real deal and gets to do all the fun stuff and make me look good.

Studing jewelry gives you an incredible technical background. If you can work on very, very small things, then, I think, typically you find it easier to go bigger rather than the other way around. I think a lot of architects have struggled with small things. Whereas if you start small, it's easier to get bigger.

The most precise work is generally done by hand, with hand tools. Some people rely on machines for their precision, and my way of working is backwards. I rely on the machines for doing the gross stock removal and then, when it comes to the final refinements and fitting of joints and things, making things work together, I rely more on sharp-edged tools that I push by hand.

Handle your tools without mittens.

As long as people have been making little people, they've wanted to know how not to.

Hold still," my father would say, while I held the ship in the bottle and he burned away the strings he'd raised the mast with and set the clipper ship free on its blue putty sea. And I would wait for him, recognizing the tension of that moment when the world in the bottle depended, solely, on me.

I believe every editor should stand to edit. That's just my particular soapbox. Some things are so delicate and depend on such fine, delicate work. One frame in one direction or another can make such a difference and it is, in that, like brain surgery.

I'm very analytical, I'm very precise.

My great-grandfather Melvin had been a carpenter - so was my father - and they taught me the value of tools: saws, hammers, chisels, files and rulers. It all dealt with conciseness and precision. It eliminated guesswork. One has to know his tools, so he doesn't work against himself.

It's fine, precise, detailed work, the infinitely small motor management of diamond cutters and safecrackers that we do in our heads.

There's a feeling about it. You feel almost like a cabinetmaker, laying planks. There's a real feeling when you know you're getting it right. It's a physical feeling.