#construct

Our house was made of stone, stucco, and clapboard; the newer wings, designed by a big-city architect, had a good deal of glass, and looked out into the Valley, where on good days we could see for many miles while on humid hazy days we could see barely beyond the fence that marked the edge of our property. Father, however, preferred the roof: In his white, light-woolen three-piece suit, white fedora cocked back on his head, for luck, he spent many of his waking hours on the highest peak of the highest roof of the house, observing, through binoculars, the amazing progress of construction in the Valley - for overnight, it seemed, there appeared roads, expressways, sewers, drainage pipes, "planned" communities with such names as Whispering Glades, Murmuring Oaks, Pheasant Run, Deer Willow, all of them walled to keep out intruders, and, yet more astonishing, towerlike buildings of aluminum and glass and steel and brick, buildings whose windows shone and winked like mirrors, splendid in sunshine like pillars of flame; such beauty where once there had been mere earth and sky, it caught at your throat like a great bird's talons, taking your breath away. 'The ways of beauty are as a honeycomb,' Father told us, and none of us could determine, staring at his slow moving lips, whether the truth he spoke was a happy truth or not, whether even it was truth. ("Family") ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#planned-community #beauty

A true artist willingly removes their heart, allows constructive criticism to stomp it, then puts it back--bruised and aching--to continue improving due to the all-consuming obsessive love for their art. ↗

— H.G. Mewis

#h-g-mewis #true-artist #art

As goes the family, so goes the faith; as goes the faith, so goes the culture. ↗

— Kenneth L. Gentry Jr.

#culture #faith #family #faith

To the biographer all lives bar none are dramatic constructions. ↗

— Katharine Anthony

#biographer #constructions #dramatic #lives #none

I'm Method trained. How is this character like me? What does she think of her mother? What does her mother think of her? It's like construction, and then, yes, you hope you're talented and that the universe aligns and captures the kind of laborer's work you've done and whatever else sprinkles down on you, and it's all caught on film or onstage. ↗

— Ellen Barkin

#caught #character #construction #does #done

The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#convictions #facts #far #life #more

Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it. ↗

— Gael Garcia Bernal

#basis #constructed #cynical #day-to-day #day-to-day basis

I know that my Republican colleagues are as ashamed as I am that the United States is forced to borrow over $1 trillion from foreign nations to pay for our national priorities like reconstruction of the gulf coast and the war in Iraq. ↗

— Dennis Cardoza

#ashamed #borrow #coast #colleagues #forced

There's almost 70 billion in square feet under construction in high rises in commercial, residential and light manufacturing. And we estimate about 30 billion square feet, and that's with a 'B,' is commercial, that we would just consider office space. To put that in perspective, that's a 5x5-foot cubicle for every man, woman and child in China. ↗

— James Chanos

#almost #billion #child #china #commercial

If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#door #ever #face #investigation #like