Nick Park Quotes

I was brought up to reuse things.

Even clingfilm - if it's gone over a salad bowl, take it off, use it again. I wash out carrier bags; I save brown paper from parcels. I save string; I save ribbons. I separate all my bits and pieces.

One kid's old, used-up equipment is another kid's brand-new, awesome, awesome equipment.

If you keep a thing seven years, you are sure to find a use for it.

I can remember when pants were pants. You wore them for twenty years, then you cut them down for pan scrubs. Or quilts.

My grandma taught me how to hand-sew, so I'm always making things from hand-me-downs.

Nothing is wasted.

One man's trash is another man's treasure, and the by-product from one food can be perfect for making another.

I used to love to create outfits, and I still do - I just don't have the time. How can you wear one thing and never wear it again? Even my wedding dress - I had a dress made that I could wear again. I'm a child of the depression, so I'm very, very practical.

I'm a pack rat. There's only a couple pairs of tights I've worn throughout my career that I don't have. I save everything.

Growing up I always used to shop in Oxfam. I'd find things for 50p and then take them home, cut them up and make them into something new.

I usually just dress myself. I typically make something or buy something and fix it up. I really like to spend my money on accessories like bags, shoes, belts. I don't really spend on things I can make.

I grew up in a family where our mother made our clothing. We didn't have a lot of money, so we learned how to scrimp, and we learned how to invent and to create. And those are learned skills.

I don't throw my clothes out after one wear. Shocking, I know.

I like crafts that come out of poverty or necessity. There used to be hobby shops where you'd get your supplies, and then you'd use your imagination.

When we unwrap presents, I tend to sit there with a bin liner trying to collect up the wrapping paper and thinking about which pieces I can reuse and which I will recycle.

I have been blessed with friends who do things rather than buy things: friends who will change books at the library, take a bag of your old clothes to a thrift store, bring you cuttings and plant them in a window box, fill the bird feeder in your garden when you can't get out.

In Maine, there is a deeply ingrained sense that you can always get a little more use out of something.

I think winter wear is communal. You get some gloves and a scarf from a lost-and-found box, wash them, wear them for a while until you lose them. Then somebody else does the same thing.

The funny thing about being creative is that, especially high school people, I kept noticing I'd always go to these certain materials. I'd always be picking up trash and picking up paper and using it.

I see potential in everything. It's about opening your mind to what you can do to the garment: because they're cheap, you can cut them or stitch them, and if you stuff it up, it's fine - it's only two dollars.

I used to unwind the wire tags that labeled the crates of vegetables and took the fine brass and steel wires and braided and twisted them together to make bracelets, rings, and figures.

An artist looks at a juice bottle, an egg carton, or a newspaper and sees something valuable in them.

My dad used to give me old electrical equipment that didn't work anymore, and I'd put things together. I think that's why I like to mix things that don't belong.

There is no such thing as waste. It is just a question of whether we know how to use something or not.