Occupations

"Architecture worth great attention. As we double our numbers every 20 years we must double our houses. Besides we build of such perishable materials that one half of our houses must be rebuilt in every space of 20 years. So that in that term, houses are to be built for three fourths of our inhabitants. It is then among the most important arts: and it is desireable to introduce taste into an art which shews so much."

"Anon, out of the earth a fabric huge Rose, like an exhalation."

"Silently as a dream the fabric rose; No sound of hammer or of saw was there."

"Dancing and architecture are the two primary and essential arts. The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite."

"Bridges are America's cathedrals."

"Architects know that some kinds of design problems are more personal than others. One of the cleanest, most abstract design problems is designing bridges. There your job is largely a matter of spanning a given distance with the least material. The other end of the spectrum is designing chairs. Chair designers have to spend their time thinking about human butts."

"Windows and doors, in nameless sculpture drest, With order, symmetry, or taste unblest; Forms like some bedlam-statuary's dream, The craz'd creations of misguided whim."

"When, in architecture, one uses a fixed unit and combinations of it, to produce harmony, the effect should be most striking and apparent... as it is in music by the measured beat and in poetry by the cadence and rhythm."

"[Makes a good architect] an open mind, energy, an appetite for hard work, a willingness to explore new solutions and push boundaries. A sense of humor is also helpful."

"[A]rchitecture and psychology suddenly become very close."

"Architecture differs from a work of art, which can be displayed in different settings and the subject-matter, form and meaning will remain unchanged. The physicality of any built structure can be altered over time as additions and alterations are made. Moreover, a building or work of architecture can change its function as it meets the different demands of its occupants, although its exterior appearance may be unaltered. And its meaning may change depending on the nature of the context. This reveals some of the problems of interpreting historic architecture from a modern-day perspective as the physical changes and different cultural contexts transform the object."

"ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money."

"The civil engineer is the real 19th century architect."

"Architecture has recorded the great ideas of the human race. Not only every religious symbol, but every human thought has its page in that vast book."

"La vue d'un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixée qui vous attend pour vous faire du bien quand vous vous en approchez."

"Lo, where the Stage, the poor, degraded Stage, Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age!"

"The play is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompter's bell: A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task: And, when he's laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that's anything but gay."

"(The) play of limbs succeeds the play of wit."

"In other things the knowing artist may Judge better than the people; but a play, (Made for delight, and for no other use) If you approve it not, has no excuse."

"Tom Goodwin was an actor-man, Old Drury's pride and boast, In all the light and spritely parts, Especially the ghost."

"The play bill which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out."

"A long, exact, and serious comedy; In every scene some moral let it teach, And, if it can, at once both please and preach."

"This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew."

"This many-headed monster."

"There still remains to mortify a wit The many-headed monster of the pit."

"And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop To the low mimic follies of a farce, As a grave matron would to dance with girls."

"The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please, must please to live."

"To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold— For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage."

"Who teach the mind its proper face to scan, And hold the faithful mirror up to man."

"Prologues like compliments are loss of time; 'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme."

"On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting,'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting."

"Prologues precede the piece in mournful verse, As undertakers walk before the hearse."

"Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor, prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeeper, doorkeeper, all in one, and audience into the bargain."

"It's very hard! Oh, Dick, my boy, It's very hard one can't enjoy A little private spouting; But sure as Lear or Hamlet lives, Up comes our master, Bounce! and gives The tragic Muse a routing."

"Your scene precariously subsists too long, On French translation and Italian song. Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage; Be justly warm'd with your own native rage."

"Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks: Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks. The founder's you: the table is this place: The carvers we: the prologue is the grace. Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish, Though we're in Lent. I doubt you're still for flesh. Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough. Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepper-proof? Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew. Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join. Are butcher's meat, a battle's sirloin: Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste, Are water-gruel without salt or taste."

"Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime, In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time; Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best, And turn'd some very serious things to jest. Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers; "Alas, poor Yorick!" now forever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote. We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens, When "Chrononhotonthologos must die," And Arthur struts in mimic majesty."

"As good as a play."

"James Bond was established by Ian Fleming as a white character, played by white actors. Play 003 or 006, but you cannot be 007. A lot of people say we should be allowed to play everything. Don’t be ridiculous. If I say I want to play JFK, I should be laughed out of the room. Black men should stop trying to play roles created by whites. These roles are not written for black men. We have pens [to create] roles that no one else has established."

"After acting for so many years, do you know who you are anymore? Because actors are liars basically, you lie about who you are to an audience."

"I never wanted to be an actor, and to this day I don't. I can't get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do."

"An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation."

"But as for all the rest, There's hardly one (I may say none) who stands the Artist's test. The Artist is a rare, rare breed. There were but two, forsooth, In all me time (the stage's prime!) and The Other One was Booth."

"I think that people don’t realize how challenging that voice work can be. Because when we invite them into the booth, we will be asking them to do multiple scenes. And so we will be asking them to go from one emotion, to another, to another very quickly, and they have to be very nimble. And they don’t have the benefit of a costume, or a set, or even another actor to bounce off of, they have to conjure all of it up. And because we work in animation, it is very physical often times: it’s you’re crashing through a window or you’re on a motorcycle or you’re in a room by yourself or you’re in a room with ten people, they have to imagine that while they are doing it, and I am always so impressed by the guys that can do it, and we do ask them to do long sessions. And the stamina is also something I am very impressed by."

"What goes on between an actor and the audience, at its best, is a dialogue. Sometimes you watch an actor on stage and somehow the performance isn’t getting through. The fourth wall is not only closed, it’s soundproofed. That’s because the actor isn’t connecting with the living and breathing human beings in the room with him. The audience feels the distance and they react accordingly. As an actor, you have to fire up your sensors at 100 percent all the time. You have to be in touch with all those heartbeats in the audience, connect with them. Sometimes during the Grinch performances, a child will shout out something. And I’ll turn right around, look them in the eye and respond to them."

"Acting is the most embarrassing business in the world. You never know when you're going to eat."

"The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing."

"Every now and then, when you're onstage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live."

"If I went to see Berma in a new play, it would not be easy for me to assess her art and her diction, since I should not be able to differentiate between a text which was not already familiar and what she added to it by her intonations and gestures, an addition which would seem to me to be embodied in the play itself; whereas the old plays, the classics which I knew by heart, presented themselves to me as vast and empty walls, reserved and made ready for my inspection, on which I should be able to appreciate without restriction the devices by which Berma would cover them, as with frescoes, with the perpetually fresh treasures of her inspiration."

"I accept or reject a film based on my conception of cinema. The definition of political cinema is one I don't agree with, because every film, every show, is typically political in nature. Political cinema is simply the brainchild of bad journalists. I try to make films that say something about the mechanisms of a society like ours, which correspond with some research of a shred of truth. For me, there is a need to understand the cinema as a means of mass communication, as well as the theater and television. Being an actor is a matter of choice that above all takes place at an existential level: either you express the conservative structures of society and are nothing more that a tool in the hands of power, or you address the progressive components of this society in an attempt to settle a revolutionary relation between art and life."