“Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics.”

“A brick could be duct taped in front of your eyes, like a blindfold, so you can have that feeling of hitting your head against a brick wall all the time. 
”

“Hospitals were to her a memento mori in bricks and mortar; an awful reminder of the inevitable end that was coming to all of us but which she felt was best ignored while one got on with the business of life.”

“I did not know that a person could hold up a wall made up of imaginary bricks and mortar against the horrors and cruel, dark tricks of time that assail us, and be the author therefore of themselves.”

“The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.”

“Human beings have an extraordinary capacity to imagine possibilities and then turn those possibilities into realities. Evident in the gifts of civilization—in our arts, languages, sciences, technologies, businesses, governments, and so on—it is clear that we are a profoundly creative species. Yet many of us only access a smidgen of our creativity.”