A knotty piece of timber must have smooth wedges. – English proverb quoted by John Ray, 1670

The feel and beauty of finely crafted wood – the refreshing smell of your workshop – the absorbing joy of cutting and joining that makes the hours race by – These are the reasons you love woodworking. – Jack Neff, Make Your Woodworking Pay for Itself, 1996

The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp… – Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry…. Both are very hard work. Writing something is almost as hard as making a table. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood. Both are full of tricks and techniques. Basically very little magic and a lot of hard work… – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, interview, The Paris Review, 1981