Bernard's [Leach] drawings delineated every little accent on the pot, every subtle curve and change of angle and proportion and all.

I make a lot of pots in a year's time and some of them are good and some of them are mediocre and some of them are bad. If they're really bad and I'd be ashamed of them, I throw them out, but if they're mediocre and they'll serve the purpose for which they're designed, that is, a mixing bowl or a soup bowl or a plate or whatever, I sell them. And this income from the sale of these pots permits me to go on and make other pots. It's even more important now that I've quit teaching, because I do not have a teacher's salary to fall back on.

[Sculpturing] didn't stick with me. I never felt I wanted to go on with that.

In fact, I believe to a certain extent a person today who starts with just clay, with no drawing and no painting and no figure drawing, still-life drawing, various things, they miss a great deal.

At that [childhood] time, of course, if you were involved in art, it was going to be drawing and painting, because that's the only thing that was taught in the schools.

I was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and I do know from what my parents tell me that I was always interested in art, although not very good at it.

[Shoji] Hamada seldom drew an exact drawing of a pot that he was going to make.