“What's the point in wasting a perfectly good brick wall when you have someone to throw against it, that's what I always say.”

“Engineering does not require science. Science helps a lot but people built perfectly good brick walls long before they knew why cement works.”

“I swear, talking to you is like talking to a really good-looking and mildly stupid brick wall.”

“Why did adults have to be so thick? They always say “tell the truth,” and when you do, they don’t believe you. What’s the point?”

“When I date someone, I think long term. What's the point of dating someone if you only want them temporarily?”

“What I thought was an end
turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall
turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.”

“What was the point of spending your life with someone you were always looking for ways to deceive?”

“It takes time, see. You finish painting the painting and then you turn it to the wall. I mean, you say, does it have it or doesn't it have it? If it doesn't have it, you throw it away, but if you think it has it, you turn it to the wall. And then when you have made some more work, then you turn them all over. And you, again, try to see exactly what it does mean and just exactly how effectively you have rendered this meaning.”

“On the top of the wall lay a structure of burnt brick, about a foot and a half in height, under the tiles and projecting like a coping. …when the tiles on the roof are broken or thrown down by the wind so that rain-water can leak through, this burnt brick coating will prevent the crude brick from being damaged, and the cornice-like projection will throw off the drops beyond the vertical face, and thus the walls, though of crude brick structure, will be preserved intact.”

“I always loved the grand dichotomies of life. Dogs and cats. Cats and mice. Like Tom and Jerry. But as someone who grew up in Central Europe I never understood how a mouse can live inside a wall. Walls are made of bricks! They are not hollow. Way later I came to understand, when I learned that US-American houses are just made of wood, and their walls are really hollow.”