If we wanted applause, we would have joined the circus.
— Jack O'Donnell, Argo
There is no such thing as an independently existing trajectory.
— Albert Einstein, Relativity
It is not always easy to tell the truth, especially when one has to be concise.
— Sigmund Freud, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis
Nobody can do. The shing-a-ling. Like I do.
— The Human Beinz, "Nobody But Me"
And whiles we should fall to muse on the times when all the ways of nature were mere wonders to men, yet so well beloved by them that they called them by men’s names and gave them deeds of men to do: and many a time there would come before us memories of the deeds of past times, and of the aspirations of those mighty peoples whose deaths have made our lives, and their sorrows our joys. How could we keep silence all of this? and what voice could tell it but the voice of art: and what audience for such a tale would content us but all men living on the earth?
This is what Architecture hopes to be: it will have this life, or else death; and it is for us now living between the past and the future to say whether it shall live or die.
— William Morris, The Prospects of Architecture in Civilisation
Knowledge is scalable.
— Lucia Allais
America remains the one indispensable nation.
— President Obama, 10/22/12 Presidential Debate
This is a Romeo Fox Trot. Shall we dance?
— Kilgore, Apocalypse Now
It doesn’t really bother me, except for it’s forever. When I think about forever I get upset. Like the Land o’ Lakes butter has that Indian girl. Sitting, holding a box. And it has a picture of her on it, holding a box. With a picture of her on it, holding a box. Have you ever noticed that?
— Sally Draper, “Blowing Smoke,” Mad Men
But you surely told me to listen, not to words, but to thought. How can I follow, if you are always thinking ahead of the words? You seem to take delight in it.
— Louis H. Sullivan, “Function and Form”
He’s just been around so long he knows everything.
— Phil, Groundhog Day
Taste is the smiling surface of a lake whose depths are great, impenetrable and cold.
— John Summerson, “William Butterfield; Or, The Glory Of Ugliness”
It will hit you like a bus.
— P. Adams Sitney
If you choose to believe.
— David Reinfurt
At some time or other in the life of every healthy young person there appears to be developed what has been styled ‘the collecting mania.’
— W. J. Holland, The Butterfly Book
What is the shape inside your head?
— RoseLee Goldberg
I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with enjoyment-was the carver happy while he was about it?
— John Ruskin, “The Lamp of Life,” The Seven Lamps of Architecture
Simple as it may sound, the task of creative non-interference with letters is a rewarding and difficult calling. In ideal conditions, it is all that typographers are really asked to do - and it is enough.
— Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
The role of sameness here is significant.
— Michael Koortbojian
And there is a small manmade object that Mr. Sugimoto fetched from a cabinet on a recent afternoon.
— Randy Kennedy, “‘Fossilizing’ With a Camera,” The New York Times