House Watching Quotes

House-watching is an art. You have to develop a way of seeing how a building sits in its landscape or streetscape. You have to discover how much room it takes up in the world, how much of the world it displaces. ~ Edmund De Waal

Master Stuart made his letters into paper darts and launched them page by page from the roof of the house-watching them descend and fade into the green ravine below ... Some he saved to trade at school for other artifacts of war sent home by other elder brothers like his own-but only the letters mailed from France were worthy of this exchange. They had to have the smell of fire. ~ Timothy Findley

Marriage is a sort of tacit hunting in couples. The world all in couples, each couple in its own little house, watching its own little interests and stewing in its own little privacy - it's the most repulsive thing in the world. One's got to get rid of the exclusiveness of married love. ~ Susan Sontag

Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair, and all the dark confusions of the soul - but so have we. You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them - but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us - we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass. ~ Thomas Wolfe

Watching you guys makes me want to get my shit together... ~ Inio Asano

At first I was surprised and confused; then as he lay in his house and didn't move or breathe or speak hour upon hour it grew upon me that I was responsible, because no one else was interested
interested, I mean, with that intense personal interest to which everyone has some vague right at the end. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

A great responsibility to bring and give
a new way of watching to the world.
The Religion Of The Blue Circle
Religious Leader Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
December 25, 2016 ~ Petra Hermans

I actually like older horror movies more than newer ones because when I'm watching newer ones, like 'Chucky' or 'Saw' or whatever, I'm like, 'Come on, really, this isn't even good, all it is is blood and knives.' I like when it has a story line, you know? When it's actually a movie. ~ Emily Alyn Lind

What a waste, what a crime to wreck a world so abundantly full of different kinds of flowers. Kathy hated it, hated living at the end of the world, but then she couldn't help but find it interesting, watching people herself included compulsively foul their nest. ~ Olivia Laing

She hoped the menfolk were having a nice, relaxing road trip in that souped-up man car they were riding in because as soon as they got to the Roberts' house, she was pawning off the woman formerly known as her sister onto the dude whose sperm had apparently turned her into a she-devil. ~ Julie James

A small house must depend on its grouping with other houses for its beauty, and for the preservation of light air and the maximum of surrounding open space. ~ Clarence Stein

Jay's downstairs waiting."
With her father on one side, and the handrail on the other, Violet descended the stairs as if she were floating. Jay stood at the bottom, watching her, frozen in place like a statue.
His black suit looked as if it had been tailored just for him. His jacket fell across his strong shoulders in a perfect line, tapering at his narrow waist. The crisp white linen shirt beneath stood out in contrast against the dark, finely woven wool. He smiled appreciatively as he watched her approach, and Violet felt her breath catch in her throat at the striking image of flawlessness that he presented.
"You...are so beautiful," he whispered fervently as he strode toward her, taking her dad's place at her arm.
She smiled sheepishly up at him. "So are you."
Her mom insisted on taking no fewer than a hundred pictures of the two of them, both alone and together, until Violet felt like her eyes had been permanently damaged by the blinding flash. Finally her father called off her mom, dragging her away into the kitchen so that Violet and Jay could have a moment alone together.
"I meant it," he said. "You look amazing."
She shook her head, not sure what to say, a little embarrassed by the compliment.
"I got you something," he said to her as he reached inside his jacket. "I hope you don't mind, it's not a corsage."
Violet couldn't have cared less about having flowers to pin on her dress, but she was curious about what he had brou ~ Kimberly Derting

When you make something, if you are a painter or a writer, a degree, or a sculptor or whatever or a musician, a degree of energy is required to make it, and I'm not sure that it is always aggressive, but when you have a great deal of energy it can appear to be more aggressive than it is. In fact, I mean you can talk about a waterfall being aggressive, but in fact it is just a very powerful forward movement of energy, and although I think sometimes my engine house is a kind of anger. ~ Simon McBurney

I try to spend as much time writing about new worlds as I do reading and watching them. ~ C.E. Wilson

I'm not a huge L.A. fan, but I go there for the winter every year. We usually rent a house and have massive house parties. ~ Benny Blanco

In her mind she could remember about six different tunes from the pieces of his [Mozart's] she had heard. A few of them were kind of quick and tinkling, and another was like that smell in springtime after a rain. But they all made her somehow sad and excited at the same time.
She hummed one of the tunes, and after a while in the hot, empty house by herself she felt the tears come in her eyes. ~ Carson McCullers

I think that we are in a very strange time, when everybody is thinking about what is going to happen, and everybody is kind of cleaning house a little bit. In the fashion world, we are doing something similar. We are taking the fake out and being a little bit more real and simple. ~ Alber Elbaz

Looking back, I clearly understand that seeing a 'chain of command' approach in my house was a positive thing for me. My father provided a strong point of view on life and was a leader. Boys, especially, need that. ~ Bill O'Reilly

I was used to surrounding myself with drug addicts. They were usually slightly older than me. Most of them looked like they'd been gnawed at by a household pet and tossed in the corner of the garage for a few years. But Number 3 introduced me to a whole new level of bad crowds. As a house painter, he associated with men in construction. Many of them were middle-aged, poverty-stricken rednecks with snuff leaking out of their toothless traps. Marijuana and painkillers were their crackers and juice boxes. ~ Maggie Young

To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a 'home' might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation. ~ Emily Post

I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out in the open. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The budget does not adequately fund important domestic programs, promotes tax cuts to the detriment of other priorities and does little to put our nation's fiscal house in order. ~ Jim Jeffords

But just then, as if to avoid a certain awkwardness, Seaman began to talk not about Newell but about Newell's mother, Anne Jordan Newell. He described her appearance (pleasing), her work (she had a job at a factory that made irrigation systems), her faith (she went to church every Sunday), her industriousness (she kept the house as neat as a pin), her kindness (she always had a smile for everyone), her common sense (she gave good advice, wise advice, without forcing it on anyone). A mother is a precious thing, concluded Seaman. Marius and I founded the Panthers. We worked whatever jobs we could get and we bought shotguns and handguns for the people's self-defense. But a mother is worth more than the Black Revolution. That I can promise you. In my long and eventful life, I've seen many things. I was in Algeria and I was in China and in several prisons in the United States. A mother is a precious thing. This I say here and I'll say anywhere, anytime, he said in a hoarse voice. ~ Roberto Bolano

We have to cease to think, if we refuse to do it in the prison house of language; for we cannot reach further than the doubt which asks whether the limit we see is really a limit. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn't have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn't seem to be really trying. ~ Raymond Chandler

You don't have to be a genius to recognize one. If you did, Einstein would never have gotten invited to the White House. ~ Tom Robbins

I KNEW IT WAS OVER

when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring
when you used to make the sun rise
when trees used to throw themselves
in front of you
to be paper for love letters
that was how i knew i had to do it

swaddle the kids we never had
against january's cold slice
bundle them in winter
clothes they never needed
so i could drop them off at my mom's
even though she lives on the other side of the country
and at this late west coast hour is
assuredly east coast sleeping
peacefully

her house was lit like a candle
the way homes should be
warm and golden
and home
and the kids ran in
and jumped at the bichon frise
named lucky
that she never had
they hugged the dog
it wriggled
and the kids were happy
yours and mine
the ones we never had
and my mom was

grand maternal, which is to say, with style
that only comes when you've seen
enough to know grace

like when to pretend it's christmas or
a birthday so
she lit her voice with tiny
lights and pretended
she didn't see me crying

as i drove away
to the hotel connected to the bar
where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had

just because it shares your first name
because they don't make a whisky
called baby
and i only thought what i got
was what
i ordered

i ~ Daphne Gottlieb

We say, "Happy are the clever, for they shall inherit the admiration of their friends"; "Happy are the aggressive, for they shall inherit a career"; "Happy are the rich, for they shall inherit a world of friends
and a house full of modern gadgets." Jesus said, "[Happy] are the meek; for they shall
inherit the earth" [see Matthew 5:5]. If we want the secret of happiness ... "meekness" is a basic key. ~ Billy Graham

And challenging your neighborhood to a round of competitive outdoor decorating. Because you're not really celebrating the birth of Jesus unless your house can be spotted by passing aircraft. ~ Molly Harper

I figure you're only here for a matter of moments. Ever since I was a kid watching movies I've always wanted to make people laugh or have some sort of emotional reaction. ~ Tim Conway

Cabbage as a food has problems. It is easy to grow, a useful source of greenery for much of the year. Yet as a vegetable it has original sin, and needs improvement. It can smell foul in the pot, linger through the house with pertinacity, and ruin a meal with its wet flab. Cabbage also has a nasty history of being good for you. ~ Jane Grigson

A well-made poem is a little haunted house, a tangible dwelling place for the spirit ~ Daniel Veach

I love watching my brothers raise their kids and not have to do it for myself and have the responsibility. ~ Liam Hemsworth