“for 100,000 (dollars), you [can] flatten a house with a wrecking ball. Imagine how much less it [takes] to destroy something than it [does] to build it in the first place.”

Essay: "Us and them" - p.7 [page numbers per the Abacus paperback, 2005 UK edition]
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004)

F 39
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Source: The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood

Source: Gilead

Source: Fablehaven

Source: The Sons of Heaven (2007), Chapter 32, Section 1 “Gray’s Inn Road” (p. 391)

Fiction, The Colour Out of Space (1927)
Context: West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentle slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs. The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there. French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles have come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.

Source: Fate's Edge

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Low walls are much less expensive to build than high ones... it is possible to use forms without the usual waste of lumber... when waste is avoided, forms greatly reduce the cost of stonework... much can be saved in the construction of foundations by methods described...<!-- Introduction