Bricklayer Quotes

I am not a teacher in my heart," she said. "I am a doer, and all these little shitheads in front of me are do-nothings. There is racism in the world and they acknowledge it, but they sit in class listening to bullshit professors. Give me a bricklayer with a racist attitude. It is just more honest. ~ Allan Dare Pearce

I had a guidance counsellor who made me take an aptitude test, and told me I should be a bricklayer. ~ Harmony Korine

Hurrying on, Barbee nodded to the workman as casually as he could. His skin felt goose-pimpled under the thin red robe, and he couldn't help shivering to a colder chill than he felt in the frosty air. For the quiet city, it seemed to him, was only a veil of painted illusion. Its air of sleepy peace concealed brooding horror, too frightful for sane minds to dwell upon. Even the cheery bricklayer with the lunch pail might - just might - be the monstrous Child of Night. ~ Jack Williamson

I'm an actor. It's like being a bricklayer. Sometimes I'm building a little wall, and the next time I'm building a palace. ~ Corbin Bernsen

My mother has always been unhappy with what I do. She would rather I do something nicer, like be a bricklayer. ~ Mick Jagger

I used to help out my father, a bricklayer, in the summer. I'd catch the bricks (that were dropped). And it made me strong, catching those bricks. I wouldn't change anything about it. That's why I'm where I am today. Really. ~ Jerry Rice

If I had been a bricklayer I'd still have been a journeyman. ~ Fred L. Turner

I felt that everything is beautiful, but that which man tries intentionally to make beautiful; that the work of an ordinary bricklayer is more valid than the artwork of all but a very few artists. ~ Ellsworth Kelly

I think with my hands, it was catching a lot of footballs and working with my father during the summer because he would always make me. My father was a bricklayer so I was a helper. My job was to make sure that he had bricks to lay. ~ Jerry Rice

The Lawyers Know Too Much

THE LAWYERS, Bob, know too much.
They are chums of the books of old John Marshall.
They know it all, what a dead hand wrote,
A stiff dead hand and its knuckles crumbling,
The bones of the fingers a thin white ash.
The lawyers know
a dead man's thoughts too well.

In the heels of the higgling lawyers, Bob,
Too many slippery ifs and buts and howevers,
Too much hereinbefore provided whereas,
Too many doors to go in and out of.

When the lawyers are through
What is there left, Bob?
Can a mouse nibble at it
And find enough to fasten a tooth in?

Why is there always a secret singing
When a lawyer cashes in?
Why does a hearse horse snicker
Hauling a lawyer away?
The work of a bricklayer goes to the blue.
The knack of a mason outlasts a moon.
The hands of a plasterer hold a room together.
The land of a farmer wishes him back again.
Singers of songs and dreamers of plays
Build a house no wind blows over.
The lawyers - tell me why a hearse horse snickers hauling a lawyer's bones. ~ Carl Sandburg

I went up the stairs of the little hotel, that time in Bystřice by Benešov, and at the turn of the stairs there was a bricklayer at work, in white clothes; he was chiselling channels in the wall to cement in two hooks, on which in a little while he was going to hang a Minimax fire-extinguisher; and this bricklayer was already and old man, but he had such an enormous back that he had to turn round to let me pass by, and then I heard him whistling the waltz from The Count of Luxembourg as I went into my little room. It was afternoon. I took out two razors, and one of them I scored blade-up into the top of the bathroom stool, and the other I laid beside it, and I, too, began to whistle the waltz from The Count of Luxembourg while I undressed and turned on the hot-water tap, and then I reflected, and very quietly I opened the door a crack. And the bricklayer was standing there in the corridor on the other side of the door, and it was as if he also had opened the door a crack to have a look at me and see what I was doing, just as I had wanted to have a look at him.

And I slammed the door shut and crept into the bath, I had to let myself down into it gradually, the water was so hot; I gasped with the sting of it as carefully and painfully I sat down. And then I stretched out my wrist, and with my right hand I slashed my left wrist ... and then with all my strength I brought down the wrist of my right hand on the upturned blade I'd grooved into the stool for that purpose. ~ Bohumil Hrabal

Only when architect, bricklayer and tenant are a unity, or one and the same person, can we speak of architecture. Everything else is not architecture, but a criminal act which has taken on form. ~ Friedensreich Hundertwasser

I worked in construction management and I don't think construction workers are always honoured in the way they deserve. Barring natural disasters, a house or a 50-storey building is going to remain standing until it's demolished, and that's irrespective of the quality of craftsmanship. But the aesthetic qualities of good bricks will never be appreciated unless the workmanship is of the highest standard. Whether it's writing, cooking or bricklaying, quality of workmanship will always be the determining factor as to whether or not the finished product turns out mediocre or really exceptional. The choice of brick - just like the choice of words or spices - may well have a large bearing on the aesthetics of a new build, be it a large housing estate or just an ordinary garden wall but put the trowel in the right hands and poor-quality bricks can be made to look much better than they really are. ~ Karl Wiggins

I look upon myself as a musical bricklayer with architectural aspirations. ~ Robert Mayer

An author is like an incompetent bricklayer - doesn't use mortar and keeps rearranging the bricks until someone tells him to stop. ~ Chris Everheart

He was a bricklayer; for fifty years, in Italy, America, France, then again in Italy, and finally in Germany, he had laid bricks, and every brick had been cemented with curses. He cursed continuously, but not mechanically; he cursed with method and care, acrimoniously, pausing to find the right word, frequently correcting himself and losing his temper when unable to find the word he wanted; then he cursed the curse that would not come. ~ Primo Levi

The important thing is to take the bricklayer and make him understand that he's building a home, not just laying bricks. ~ Herb Kelleher

One day a friend came by the job site and asked them separately what they were doing. The first said, "Aw, we're just laying brick. We've been doing this for thirty years. It's so boring. One brick on top of the other." Then the friend asked the second bricklayer. He just lit up. "Why, we're building a magnificent skyscraper," he said. "This structure is going to stand tall for generations to come. I'm just so excited that I could be a part of it." Each bricklayer's happiness or lack of it was based on their perspective. You can be laying a brick or you can be building a beautiful skyscraper. The choice is up to you. You can go to work each day and just punch in on the clock and dread being there and do as little as possible. Or you can show up with enthusiasm and give it your best, knowing that you're making the world a better place. ~ Joel Osteen

The only other thing that interested me as a kid was being a bricklayer. So if I hadn't become an actress, I would probably be a bricklayer. ~ Nikki Cox

I don't care if it takes you five years of doing nothing at all; I don't care if you decide after five years that what you really want is to be a bricklayer or a mechanic or a merchant seaman. Don't you see what I'm saying? It's got nothing to do with definite, measurable talents - it's your very essence that's being stifled here. ~ Richard Yates

He never retorted that the artist is not a bricklayer at all, but a horseman whose business it is to catch Pegasus at once, not to practise for him by mounting tamer colts. This is hard, hot and generally ungraceful work, but it is not drudgery. For drudgery is not art, and cannot lead to it. ~ E. M. Forster