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The prejudice of the race appears stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State.
Sep 27, 2025
I was the worst bricklayer in the world. I can show you buildings I worked on - they're a hazard. I closed a window one time. I forgot to set back a brick and I just kept going - there I was singing 'There's no business like show business'.
I think with my hands, it was catching a lot of footballs and working with my father during the summer because he would always make me. My father was a bricklayer so I was a helper. My job was to make sure that he had bricks to lay.
I grew up in a brick house. What's wrong with bricks? An Englishman took me aside and said, "You have to understand, all the bricklayers in England are Irish, and the English hate the Irish."
I get inspired with passion, I think. I get inspired by people who are just passionate, and it doesn't matter what they do or what they're passionate about. I just think passion is such an embraceable thing, whether it's the guy in the coffee shop who's making the coffee or a bricklayer who loves making walls. I love watching people who love what they do, and I think that's very inspirational.
Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven't been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.
I see Professionalism as a spreading disease of the present-day world, a sort of poly-oligarchy by which various groups (subway conductors, social workers, bricklayers) can bring things to a halt if their particular demands are not met. (Meanwhile, the irrelevance of each profession increases, in proportion to its increasing rigidity.) Such lucky groups demand more in each go-round - but meantime, the number who are permanently unemployed grows and grows.
I used to help out my father, a bricklayer, in the summer. I'd catch the bricks (that were dropped). And it made me strong, catching those bricks. I wouldn't change anything about it. That's why I'm where I am today. Really.
I look in the mirror and think, 'I don't look like a rock star.' I talked about this with Bono and we looked at each other and decided we look like a pair of bricklayers.
My father was a better bricklayer than I am a theologian. I am still in too much of a hurry. But if the work I have done in theology is of any use, it is because of what I learned on the job, that is, you can lay only one brick at a time.
My father was a guy most comfortable in the company of bricklayers and carpenters and electricians. And I have a lot of that in me also. I love those people.
Two bricklayers work side by side. The first lays bricks. The second builds magnificent cathedrals. Think small vs. think big.
The only other thing that interested me as a kid was being a bricklayer. So if I hadn't become an actress, I would probably be a bricklayer.
The important thing is to take the bricklayer and make him understand that he’s building a home, not just laying bricks.
If I had been a bricklayer Id still have been a journeyman.
My mother has always been unhappy with what I do. She would rather I do something nicer, like be a bricklayer.
...the story of a man who saw three fellows laying bricks at a new building: He approached the first and asked, What are you doing? Clearly irritated, the first man responded, What the heck do you think I'm doing? I'm laying these darn bricks! He then walked over to the second bricklayer and asked the same question. The second fellow responded, Oh, I'm making a living. He approached the third bricklayer with the same question, What are you doing? The third looked up, smiled and said, I'm building a cathedral. At the end of the day, who feels better about how he's spent his last eight hours?
There were so many bands in New Orleans. But most of the musicians had day jobs, you know -- trades. They were bricklayers and carpenters and cigar makers and plasterers. Some had little businesses of their own -- coal and wood and vegetable stores. Some worked on the cotton exchange and some were porters. They had to work at other trades 'cause there were so many musicians, so many bands. It was the most musical town in the country.
I look upon myself as a musical bricklayer with architectural aspirations.
I felt that everything is beautiful, but that which man tries intentionally to make beautiful; that the work of an ordinary bricklayer is more valid than the artwork of all but a very few artists.
Only when architect, bricklayer and tenant are a unity, or one and the same person, can we speak of architecture. Everything else is not architecture, but a criminal act which has taken on form.
When it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers.
Music is my life. The last job I had, I was a bricklayer's apprentice. And I was happy with that job, too, because it was something that made me feel good. To build a wall for the side of a building felt really good to me.
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