Filler Quotes

Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers's Centre Georges Pompidou of 1971-1977 - the true prototype of the modern museum as popular architectural spectacle - wound up costing so much more than planned that the French government solved the shortfall by cutting support for several regional museums. ~ Martin Filler

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler. ~ Mark Strand

Bucket filling is in the eye of the bucket holder, not the bucket filler. Fill their buckets with things that are important to them ... not you. ~ David Cottrell

It's supposed to be raining Thank Yous on Thursday, after an ingratitude draught. Also, you'd better enjoy my love while it's fresh, before it goes rotten and I have to sell it to McDonald's as chicken filler. ~ Jarod Kintz

From the clayey soil of northern Wyoming is mined bentonite, which is used as filler in candy, gum, and lipstick. We Americans are great on fillers, as if what we have, what we are, is not enough. We have a cultural tendency toward denial, but being affluent, we strangle ourselves with what we can buy. We gave only to look at the houses we build to see how we build *against* space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness. We fill up space as if it were a pie shell, with things whose opacity further obstructs our ability to see what is already there. ~ Gretel Ehrlich

The moments between your milestones are not filler. ~ Nelou Keramati

What was that you gave me to eat?" Winter panicked.
A Filler Crisp," Clover said, his eyes seventy percent concerned and thirty percent mischievous. ~ Obert Skye

We take from the art of the past what we need. The variable posthumous reputations of even the greatest artists and the unpredictable revivals of interest in even the most obscure ones tend to reveal more about those who make revisionist assessments than about those who are being reassessed. ~ Martin Filler

There is no sadder tale in the annals of architecture than the virtual disappearance of the defining architectural form of the Modern Movement - publicly sponsored housing. ~ Martin Filler

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity," he wrote in one of his essays. "The next is to strive and deserve to conquer; but he whose life has passed without contest, and who can boast neither success nor merit can survey himself only as a useless filler of existence. ~ Anonymous

Readers often tell me after they've read the books, they find it difficult to sum up the plot in a simple way. My response is, "It's a story about the love a father shares for his daughter. All the rest is just filler."
- MJ Mancini, on his best-selling trilogy, "Revelation". ~ M.J. Mancini

Masterpieces of art possess immense potential to advance a worldview that could help assuage the societal terrors posed by globalization, the most thoroughgoing socioeconomic upheaval since the Industrial Revolution, which has set off a pandemic of retrogressive nationalism, regional separatism, and religious extremism. ~ Martin Filler

After Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the belief in decent housing as a political right or social obligation was supplanted in the U.S. by the notion that suitable shelter should be an act of charity. ~ Martin Filler

The magnificent lobby of the Chrysler Building - faced with rare marbles, aglitter with decorative metalwork, and surmounted by a ceiling painted with a totemic image of the tower itself - leads to elevator cabs inlaid with exotic woods in fanciful patterns. The entire route from street to office is invested with ceremony, dignity, and delight. ~ Martin Filler

A turning point in the public's perception of the building art came with the publication of Frank Lloyd Wright's 'An Autobiography' of 1932, a picaresque narrative that captivated many who hadn't the slightest inkling of what architects actually did. ~ Martin Filler

Experimental architecture by its very nature is more prone to the depredations of time and natural elements than buildings made from conventional materials through traditional methods. Avant-garde architects often simply do not know how the products of their imagination will perform when implemented, especially if untested components are involved. ~ Martin Filler

Although prefabrication has a long history - the ancient Romans shipped pre-cut stone columns, pediments, and other architectural elements to their colonies in North Africa, where the numbered parts were reassembled into temples - the idea took on a new impetus with the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution. ~ Martin Filler

There can be little question that the tall building presents one of the most difficult challenges to the architect. ~ Martin Filler

You need to take out the stuff that's just sitting there and doing nothing. No slackers allowed! All meat, no filler! ~ Stephen King

Although there are countless tangents that a career in the building arts can take, it is nonetheless most unusual for a major architectural practice to emerge once a firm's principals are well into what is loosely called middle age. ~ Martin Filler

Considering my specialization in architecture, I'm not surprised that the first graphic novel to thoroughly engage, not to say captivate, me is Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor's 'Batman: Death by Design.' ~ Martin Filler

The great god Ra, whose shrine once covered acres, is filler now for crossword puzzle makers. ~ Keith Preston

High among the unpredictable variables that endanger the survival of worthy buildings are the vagaries of taste. ~ Martin Filler

Maybe. Maybe not. Whether it's filler or not, I'm pretty glad to be here." If there's anything I've learned, it's that you need to make the most of it. "It mattered enough for you not to jump. ~ Jennifer Niven

I'm eighty-two, can you believe it?" She's actually ageless, given that her purple face is stretched tighter than an eggplant. "So what did you have done?" I ask, unable to help myself. "The whole package," she says. "Got my eyelids done, some Botox, a little filler, chin implant, cheekbones, got my lips done, neck lift, breast implants, tummy tuck, ass lift. ~ Kristan Higgins

History is a yarn. And can I deny that what I wanted all along was not some golden nugget that history would at last yield up, but History itself: the Grand Narrative, the filler of vacuums, the dispeller of fears of the dark? ~ Graham Swift

The tall building, concentrating man in one place more densely than ever before, similarly concentrates the dilemma of our public architecture at the end of the twentieth century: whether the new forms made possible by technology are doomed by the low calculations of modern patrons and their architects. ~ Martin Filler

Some guys record an album with songs that are filler. I recorded this album like it was my last. ~ Dick Dale

Half-assed programming was a time-filler that, like knitting, must date to the beginning of the human experience. ~ Vernor Vinge

I smelled the clean house
and the wood-frame bed. It was all filler. The noise, the sound, they existed
just to take up space. My muscles flexed into the emptiness I still called home. ~ Kevin Powers

The role of the architect as artist is an ancient one, but it was de-emphasized with the rise of modernism, which rejected the drawing-based Beaux-Arts tradition in favor of a more technocratic approach. ~ Martin Filler

Always beware an unsigned architectural design. ~ Martin Filler

The skyscraper style first advocated by Louis Sullivan - a tower of strongly vertical character with clear definitions among base, shaft, and crown - has remained remarkably consistent throughout the history of this building type. ~ Martin Filler

Oh, My God..." Even as he saw the face and heard that voice say "Crow..." he was throwing himself backward out of the shaft. Then the top of the elevator car blew out and the air was filler with shrapnel, everybody hit the deck, and crow grabbed his crossbow, yelling, "Get back! It's him, the vampire!" But it was too late. The vampire rose with the grip of a single beautiful hand, almost levitating toward them, his power and eyes and smile and terrible beauty so alien but so familiar, so pale but so solid, so horrible but so magnetic. And he came closer and closer. "Get back," ordered crow, and the Team started to obey. "Too late," the vampire said, halting them with the voice. "You've let me get too close." Crow raised his crossbow all the way then saied: "Hold it there." The thing laughed and said, "Are you joking?" "Stop!" said Crow. And the vampire smiled and showed his big teeth and said: "Stop me... ~ John Steakley

I've always wanted to have a suitcase handcuffed to my wrist. That's not a full joke there! It's filler. ~ Mitch Hedberg

What comes to mind when you think of Clay Coolidge?"
(...)
"Sex appeal, boozehound, makes love to the mic, rock star, stadium filler. ~ Erin Hahn

For years I walked around with the phrase "Green River" because I had seen that on a soda fountain drink when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, and I went, 'Gee, I like that.' Another one was "Lodi", which I thought sounded really cool. I got this cheap little empty plastic notebook at my local drugstore, and bought a little slab of filler paper and the very first title I wrote in it was "Proud Mary". I had no idea what that title meant. ~ John Fogerty

During the nineteenth century, the rapid emergence and proliferation of new manufacturing methods and building technologies led to the establishment of polytechnic schools that concentrated on the practicalities of engineering and construction rather than the niceties of stylistic correctness or adherence to established precedent. ~ Martin Filler

One reason I've never been a fan of graphic novels is because a central aspect of literature for me has always been imagining what the things I'm reading about look like. ~ Martin Filler

From the outset, MoMA followed the Bauhaus's strict prohibition against design that even hinted at the decorative, a prejudice that skewed the pioneering museum's view of Modernism for decades. ~ Martin Filler

When Oscar Niemeyer died on December 5, 2012, ten days before his 105th birthday, he was universally regarded as the very last of the twentieth century's major architectural masters, an astonishing survivor whose most famous accomplishment, Brasilia, was the climactic episode of utopian High Modern urbanism. ~ Martin Filler

Despite the persistent image of the architect as a heroic loner erecting monumental edifices through sheer force of will, the building art has always been a highly cooperative enterprise. ~ Martin Filler

Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government? ~ Voltaire

Picasso's superhuman gift for draftsmanship might have made him lazy about pursuing the full potential of color. It was not unusual for him to build a composition by first outlining figures and objects in black and then filling the interstices in a perfunctory manner that can put one in mind of a museum-shop coloring book. ~ Martin Filler

But-when you really think about it-that emotional support only applies to the experience of living in public. We don't have ways to quantify ideas like "amazing" or "successful" or "lovable" without the feedback of an audience. Nobody sits by himself in an empty room and thinks "I'm amazing." It's impossible to imagine how that would work. But being "amazing" is supposed to be what life is about. As a result, the windows of time people spend by themselves become these meaningless experiences that don't really count. It's filler. They're deleted scenes. pg 156 ~ Chuck Klosterman

One of the stated goals of the postmodern movement in architecture was a greater sensitivity to the people who live in or use newly designed buildings. ~ Martin Filler

Art has simple founding principles: Less is more, more or less; fill in the blanks with no filler. ~ Kevin Focke

Texting is more direct. You don't have to use conversation filler. ~ Sherry Turkle

A brick could be used as brain filler for the political mind, just in case one of our elected officials needs a brain transplant to try to boost their intellectual capabilities. ~ Jarod Kintz

Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century exponents of prefabrication were certain it would supplant age-old traditions of individualized design and handcrafted construction. The building art would be revolutionized by freeing designers and construction workers from repetitive tasks, and democratized by making high-style architecture more affordable. ~ Martin Filler

I'm a lazy guy. I can't focus for too long. I'd rather hear a record that has no filler. ~ Thomas Mars

Truly great architecture always transcends its stated function, sometimes in unanticipated ways. ~ Martin Filler

Architectural kitsch is most common in the commercial pop vernacular - typified by the Big Duck of 1931 in Flanders, New York, a Long Island roadside poultry stand resembling a duck, which Venturi and Scott Brown made a cult object through their writings. ~ Martin Filler

I did have a go with Botox, but I couldn't move my eyebrows. I also, at one point, had that filler stuff injected, but I looked like a hamster with wodges of food in its cheeks, so I stopped that. ~ Deborah Moggach

To the Indian, politics are what the weather is to an Englishman. Politics are an introduction to a stranger on a train, they are the standard filler for embarrassing silences in conversation, they are the inevitable small talk at any social gathering. ~ Santha Rama Rau

One of the odd enjoyments in life is to be alone in a room full of people. To have them there as unknowing human filler in your wide shot. ~ Henry Rollins

By 1970, the first stirrings of the revolt against Modernist orthodoxy in architecture had been felt, although it would be several years more until Postmodernism was widely accepted and made classical motifs permissible in high-style building design for the first time in decades. ~ Martin Filler

Museum architectural search committees have invariably included the Kimbell in their international scouting tours of exemplary art galleries (a practice pioneered by Velma Kimbell, the founder's widow, in 1964). Those groups no doubt respond to the Kimbell with suitable reverence, but given the buildings they later commissioned, many post-Bilbao museum patrons obviously wanted something quite different. The disparity between Kahn's museums and recent examples of that genre parallels the discrepancy he saw between postwar Modernism and ancient Classicism: "Our stuff looks tinny compared to it." At a time when commercial values are systematically corrupting the museum - one of civilized society's most elevating experiences - the example of Kahn, among the most courageous and successful architectural reformers of all time, seems more relevant and cautionary than ever. ~ Martin Filler

The financial benefits of prefabrication have never been as large as its advocates predicted, for although some labor costs can be reduced by machine manufacturing, on-site assembly of any building still depends to some extent on the handwork of skilled craftsmen. ~ Martin Filler

Sort of' is such a harmless thing to say ... sort of. It's just a filler. Sort of ... it doesn't really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like ... after "I love you" ... or "You're going to live" ... or "It's a boy! ~ Demetri Martin

Before World War II, Modernist architects sometimes had to resort to custom fabrication or outright fakery to achieve the machine imagery advocated by the Bauhaus after its initial, Expressionist, phase. Stucco masqueraded as reinforced concrete; rivets were used for decoration. ~ Martin Filler

Postmodernism came nowhere close in quality to Modernism at its apogee, not least because that later style wholly lacked the social impetus that animated the designs most emblematic of the Modern Movement. ~ Martin Filler

The popular mythology of creative genius depends on beloved stereotypes of the artist in youth and old age: the misunderstood upstart who forces us to see the world afresh; and the revered sage who shows us depths of insight attainable only through a lifetime of hard-won experience. ~ Martin Filler

Last year was the fourth or fifth attempt to get fall launched till 'American Idol' comes in January. To be honest, the reality programming we had on last year was considered filler until we could get to the good stuff. It was meant to hopefully get us to January andor to November. To get past baseball. But (it) didn't work very well. ~ Mike Darnell

She'd heard my theory on funnel cake and celery stalker men before. Most men were either like funnel cake: delicious and interesting, but who at the end of the day just aren't good for the heart or complexion. Or they were celery: a sensible, healthy choice that didn't really bring much to the table but an occasional crunch. If you OD on celery, you end up bingeing on cake behind closed doors.

Funnel cake, while warm and delicious, is difficult to make. But you go there because you long for it like the double-twist stomach-dropping roller coaster as soon as you arrive at the amusement park. Wet ribbons of batter crackle and pop until golden and crisp, yielding in the center. The steamy swirls of tender yellow dough absorb confectioners' sugar like pores. When the luxurious fat melts on your tongue, you exhale. You've got sticky batter, dribbling down spouts, leaving rings on your clean countertops, splattering oil growing darker and beginning to smoke. Layers of paper towels and oil-draining weapons clutter your space. With funnel cake, you've got steps to follow. Procedures. Rules.

No one makes rules about celery. It's always around for the snacking. You choose it when you're dieting or trying not to consume too many wings over football. Come to think of it, you don't even bother eating it when you diet. Instead it's a conduit for blue cheese. You use it to make stocks and stuffing. It becomes filler, pantry almost. ~ Stephanie Klein

I didn't really feel that there were any filler tracks on 'The Red Shoes,' but if I were to do that album now, I wouldn't make it so long. ~ Kate Bush

I don't do filler songs. I don't get them. They don't make any sense to me. Why would I literally waste my time on a song that doesn't hold up to the same standards as the other songs on the album? I won't play it live. ~ Betty Who

As with many other folk beliefs, 'feng-shui' undoubtedly incorporates some scientifically correct observation or received wisdom based on direct experience of natural phenomena; but it needs to be dealt with skeptically as a credible system of thought. Some feng-shui prescriptions can certainly lead to desirable results. ~ Martin Filler

Avant-garde architects have never been able to depend on the support of the establishment, since the customary patrons of this most conservative and slowly moving art form have historically been resistant to innovation and experiment. ~ Martin Filler

We got to his place and it looked a lot like his personality. Just a bunch of space filler, nothing to really wow you. It looked like he had bought a lot of stuff from IKEA and then decided to refinish it at home. Everything was neat and tidy, but you wouldn't want any of it for yourself. ~ Chelsea Handler

Death is real. Death changes things. Everything else is filler, merely a message from our sponsor. ~ Michael Marshall Smith

All architecture, classical or not, must have some sense of order, and order is much harder to achieve without the straight lines and right angles that have dominated the building art from time immemorial. ~ Martin Filler

During the modern period, the vanguard architect has usually relied on small residential jobs both to supply a steady income and to serve as 'sketches' for ideas that are often later translated to the larger scale of public commissions. ~ Martin Filler

Few developments central to the history of art have been so misrepresented or misunderstood as the brief, brave, glorious, doomed life of the Bauhaus - the epochally influential German art, architecture, crafts, and design school that was founded in Goethe's sleepy hometown of Weimar in 1919. ~ Martin Filler