Seanan McGuire Quotes

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

I went to junkyards, abandoned car lots. I asked supermarkets for the big jugs they put pig guts in, to make cabinets for my bass speakers.

Trash has given us an appetite for art.

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

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.

I'd take garbage, and I'd glue them together and create inventions.

I think of my art materials not as junk but as garbage. Manure, actually: it goes from being the waste material of one being to the life-source of another.

There is no such thing as garbage, just useful stuff in the wrong place.

Reusing and recycling our materials is the most important thing we can do.

I was brought up to reuse things.

We can't have landfills forever, and we can't ask others to accept our trash.

I credit my mom with inspiring in me a love of design, matched by her creative problem-solving abilities. This is a woman who could find an old, discarded piece of furniture, bring it home and turn it into something fabulous.

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

Like my father, I would never as a child throw anything away, keeping old toys, electric motors and bits of broken machines under my bed in what I called my Box of Useful Things.

Just because you have a piece of trash and you throw it away and it gets hauled away, it doesn't mean that it's not affecting someone else.

Wallace and Gromit's contraptions are created purely for gags, but we all have the urge to invent - especially children. If they're bored, kids will make something from cardboard boxes, yoghurt pots, tape and elastic bands. Often, those constructions are the best.

A newspaper that you're not reading can be used for anything; and the same people didn't think it was immoral to wrap their garbage in newspaper.

Some trash is recycled, some is thrown away, some ends up where it shouldn't end up.

I'm really interested in how you create a whole new economy of recycling. It's literally the 'underground economy.' All this stuff that on the surface creates growth and profit, ends up with waste, junk, and CO2. So how do you make it economic to bring new players into the ball game?

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.

You can do great things with low-tech stuff.

I'm very crafty! One time I made a television set out of a cardboard box - Everybody thought it was a lark! This was the beginning of a love affair with the arts.

One man’s trash is another man’s dissertation.

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.