Thomas J. Barratt quotes

Any fool can make soap. It takes a clever man to sell it.
-- Thomas J. Barratt

#Clever #Men #Design

I would love for people to think that I am as quick, clever, smart and heroic as the characters that I write, but those characters are characters.

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.

I'm all alone. There has been no man in my life for several months now and although it would be nice to have a boyfriend, I can't just settle for anybody. The fact is I'm choosy, but mainly about a man's character. He has to be interesting, funny and clever. I don't even mind if he's not very good-looking.

In the long run, no matter how good or successful you are or how clever or crafty, your business and its future are in the hands of the people you hire.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

We always knew how to honor fallen soldiers. They were killed for our sake, they went out on our mission. But how are we to mourn a random man killed in a terrorist attack while sitting in a cafe? How do you mourn a housewife who got on a bus and never returned?

Design should do the same thing in everyday life that art does when encountered: amaze us, scare us or delight us, but certainly open us to new worlds within our daily existence.

Because it is a national landmark, there is only one way to judge the Kennedy Center - against the established standard of progressive and innovative excellence in architectural design that this country is known and admired for internationally. Unfortunately, the Kennedy Center not only does not achieve this standard of innovative excellence; it also did not seek it. The architect opted for something ambiguously called 'timelessness' and produced meaninglessness. It is to the Washington manner born. Too bad, since there is so much of it.

It is the rare architect who does not hope in his heart to design a great building and for whom the quest is not a quiet, consuming passion.