I didn't dare to dream of making money. But now of course, I've made many thousands of dollars sharpening pencils.

I like feeling like I'm discovering something new. That's really a special feeling and also, you don't have it that often. At least, I don't. Maybe I'm not creative enough.

I never thought I would make a living as a pencil-sharpener. The first goal was: I don't want to lose money. And then the goal was: I want to see if 100 people buy my pencils. I just kept upping the benchmarks.

I've never been good at self-promotion. And my URL is really obscure. And for years and years, there was nothing about me on my website.

People think, "Wow, people in America have so much money, they're sending hundreds of pencils to this guy." I don't think those people realize that most people who are buying these pencils are buying them as art objects or conversation pieces.

The way you make money is to do something you don't like to do. And that's how you know you're a virtuous person.

I hardly ever use pencils. I'm left-handed and it's really messy if you're left-handed because of the graphite smudging. I use them more now than I used to because there's, like, 15,000 pencils all over my house.