The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing. ~Toni Morrison
Es winkt zu Fühlung
I take care of myself, and in me is roof and wall.
I protect myself, and in me is hearth and fold.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
Good
It is too loose, too informal, the construction patterns which control its detailed shape are not harmonious enough, not disciplined enough …
Yet still, this building has just the beginning of a spirit, a hint of a touching quality, which is at least a few steps down the road.
~Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building
Untitled
A house is all right for a man to work in. He brings his work into the house, a place is cleared for it; the house rearranges itself as best it can around him. Everybody recognizes that his work exists. He is not expected to answer the telephone, to find things that are lost, to see why the children are crying, or feed the cat. He can shut his door. Imagine (I said) a mother shutting her door, and the children knowing she is behind it; why, the very thought of it is outrageous to them. A woman who sits staring into space, into a country that is not her husband’s or her children’s is likewise known to be an offence against nature. So a house is not the same for a woman. She is not someone who walks into the house, to make use of it, and will walk out again. She is the house; there is no separation possible.
~Alice Munro, Dance of the Happy Shades