Kit Williams Quotes

So much of my background is about making: physically doing it myself.

I take a great deal of value in things that are done by hand or executed by hand.

There's something very satisfying about creating a tactile product.

I like manual things, doing things with my hands, the feeling of touching.

If you build your own chair, there is a lot of things that happen. You could probably buy a nice chair for less money than a chair that you built yourself, and it might even look better, but if you build that chair, you're going to take care of it and maintain it because it's your chair. If it breaks, you know how to fix it.

I grew up in a craftsman's home, where things were done with our own hands. I did cabinetmaking for four years and I hated it.

You find me at work; excuse the dust on my blouse. I sculpt my marble myself.

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

I would like Americans to make things with their hands. Thomas Jefferson and I feel that makes for a much stronger nation.

I still have the first bottle opener I made on my MakerBot. Things you fabricate are things you care more about. I think there will always be people who go and buy crap at the dollar store. But I think it is cool when people craft things themselves.

I like working with my hands. It feels good to build something yourself.

It's couture. Everything has to be done by hand. That is most important. That is the crucial element. Without it, that is not couture anymore.

Art is the only thing you cannot punch a button for. You must do it the old-fashioned way. Stay up and really burn the midnight oil. There are no compromises.

The only person I never made a hat for was my mother because my mother didn't really - she preferred to make her own hats. I mean, she was intrigued by everything, but she didn't want one of my hats. She made her own.

The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.

I do everything. Of course, I have 50 people who work for me to do the drudgery of mold making and all the foundry. This is an enormous task. But every stroke in these sculptures is from my hands.

I'm pretty handy! I do a lot of things around the house, and I actually enjoy it.

Food became for me a way of becoming self-sufficient with my hands, to regain manual literacy, which I think has been lost on our generation and certainly younger generations. Very few people can actually make things with their hands and do things with their hands.

If I wasn't a writer, I would probably be a watchmaker. I like putting puzzles together, and that is what a watch is, figuring out how all the gears and everything else works together. I'm patient and good at focusing on a single task.

When people tell me they are going to go scrapbooking, I say, 'Why don't you make it yourself.' It's like chocolate-chip cookies. People buy the cookie-dough roll and slice it, and then they lay it on a cookie sheet. That's not making chocolate-chip cookies.

In a machine age, dressmaking is one of the last refuges of the human, the personal, the inimitable.

It is the accuracy and detail inherent in crafted goods that endows them with lasting value. It is the time and attention paid by the carpenter, the seamstress and the tailor that makes this detail possible.

I'm a DIY kinda guy.

I really like stuff that is collectible that you can hold and go, 'There's only a few people that have this.' I like to see that someone's put a lot of labor into making something.

The maker movement is about people who want to gain more control of the human design world that they interact with every day. Instead of accepting off-the-shelf solutions from institutions and corporations, makers would like to make, modify, and repair their own tools, clothing, food, toys, furniture, and other physical objects.