What are you unwilling to optimise?
Recorded Ursula K. Le Guin said elsewhere, not written here
I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom.

National Book Awards ceremony, New York, 19 November 2014, ursulakleguin.com (the author's own site), 19 November 2014 source ↗

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Alice Waters Chef, restaurateur and food activist
There’s no such thing as cheap food. It can be affordable, but it can never be cheap. I think that’s something we’ve been indoctrinated by fast food culture to believe, that it can be cheap – that it can be fast, cheap, and easy. But every culture since the beginning of time has thought of food as something precious, and that’s the way I think about it. I want to give my money to the people who take care of the land, and who grow that food.
Recorded Earth Island Journal, Earth Island Journal interview, 1 January 2015 source ↗
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
They were blocked in their minds to do this because they thought, oh this is not done, we don’t do that in our field and you can’t do that, and I said: Why not?
Recorded Marika Griehsel, Interview at the 53rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 30 June–4 July 2003, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 July 2003 source ↗
Steve Jobs Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.
Recorded David Sheff, Playboy Interview, February 1985 source ↗
Annie Proulx Novelist and short-story writer
Proceed slowly and take care. […] To ensure that you proceed slowly, write by hand.
Recorded The Guardian Review, 20 February 2010 source ↗

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Question What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? Craft & work
Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.
Recorded National Book Awards ceremony, New York, 19 November 2014, ursulakleguin.com (the author's own site), 19 November 2014 source ↗
Question What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong? Values & belief
Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
Recorded National Book Awards ceremony, New York, 19 November 2014, ursulakleguin.com (the author's own site), 19 November 2014 source ↗

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