I work between my heartbeat. I have one-and-a-half seconds to actually move. And at the same time I have to watch I don’t inhale my own work.
At school I'd want to be so small that nobody could see me, and so my work depicts and reflects me - what it felt like to grow up in a world of pain.
People often swear the first time they see my work. I like that.
People find it very, very difficult to believe what I've done. Scientists have seen my work and they can't explain it. Even nano-scientists have seen it and been totally shocked. But if any man on Earth wants to challenge me, I'm ready. Bring it on.
I became obsessed with making more and more tiny things. I think I was trying to find a way of compensating for my embarrassment at having learning difficulties: people had made me feel small so I wanted to show them how significant 'small' could be.
As a kid, I lived in a fantasy world. I used to believe ants could talk. Not once did they say thank you.
I was told I would become nothing. Now I am showing people how big nothing is.
At home, when the heating pipes made noises, I imagined a tiny person was in there skipping with a rope. The fantasy world of tiny things became my escape.
Just because you can't see something, doesn't mean it's not there.
The smaller your work, the bigger your name will become.
Flying helicopters is what I do for fun.
When I first heard that Barack Obama was going to be the first black president, I wanted to do the smallest, biggest tribute in history.
I'm like a mad professor, but without the spiky hair.
My work knocks people out; you've not seen the best of me yet.
The microscopic world became my obsession.
My teacher said my brain was the size of a pea. He made my life miserable by singling me out in the classroom as a failure.
I learned nothing at school, so I just lived in my own world.
There is a child in all of us.
All creatures are great and small.
When I was a kid, I had trouble at school because of my learning disabilities. Carving is my body compensating for the lack of other skills.
I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn't hold me back and my teachers couldn't criticize me. That's how my career as a micro-sculptor began.
