Square Footage Quotes

The American Dream has been defined in dollar signs and square footage.

Addiction didn’t care about the square footage of your house or the kind of car you drove. It didn’t care about your pedigree or your GPA. Addiction was an equal opportunity life-ruiner,

But the point was it was the construction itself that had made a minor disaster into a major one. And the construction had been a cheaper means of building - a cheaper way of cramming thirty or forty families into the smallest square footage possible. That is what embittered Harris. The incompetence of 'authority'.

It also must be hard to have a wife like Mrs. Indianapolis. She’s in the fashion industry. She’s not a model or designer, but she is a buyer—not for a retail outlet, but for her four closets, whose combined square footage is probably comparable to Rhode Island. If an article of clothing is leopard print or neon colored, Mrs. Indianapolis either owns it, or soon will.

The world is deep in debt and going deeper all the time trying to buy what God offers for free: acceptance, love, approval, worth, value, peace, joy, fulfillment! The bigger house won’t make you feel complete; you will just have more square footage to clean. The newer model car won’t do it; you will just have bigger payments. The promotion at work is not the answer; you will just have more responsibility and probably be required to work longer hours.

Many times we insist on having all the best things because that’s the only way we can ensure “quality of life” for ourselves. I can neglect myself in every other way, but if I have the best watch or pocketbook or car or square footage, I get to tell myself I’m the best and how much I deserve to have even more of the best. What I know for sure: Having the best things is no substitute for having the best life. When you can let go of the desire to acquire, you know you are really on your way.

I believe many of us now live as if we value things more than people. In America, we spend more time than ever at work, and we earn more money than any generation in history, but we spend less and less time with our loved ones as a result. Likewise, many of us barely think twice about severing close ties with friends and family to move halfway across the country in pursuit of career advancement. We buy exorbitant houses—the square footage of the average American home has more than doubled in the past generation—but increasingly we use them only to retreat from the world. And even within the home-as-refuge, sealed off from the broader community “out there,” each member of the household can often be found sitting alone in front of his or her own private screen—exchanging time with loved ones for time with a bright, shiny object instead. Now, I’m not saying that any of us—if asked—would claim to value things more than people. Nor would we say that our loved ones aren’t important to us. Of course they are. But many people now live as if achievement, career advancement, money, material possessions, entertainment, and status matter more. Unfortunately, such things don’t confer lasting happiness, nor do they protect us from depression. Loved ones do.

May 1, 2011 Young jubulent Americans celebrating the killing of a murderer of women and children, and people ask; "Is it right to celebrate?" I watched these Americans in Times Square, D.C. and the world , a great generation, that died for freedom and that of the oppressed, and people ask; "Is it right to feel joy?" "Yes, I sat proudly with tears in my eyes." I was watching footage of the end of World War Two.....Johnny Flora

I had been in law school in 1989. I recalled sitting alone in my basement apartment a few miles from Harvard Square, glued to my secondhand TV set as I watched what would come to be known as the Velvet Revolution unfold. I remember being riveted by those protests and hugely inspired. It was the same feeling I’d had earlier in the year, seeing that solitary figure facing down tanks in Tiananmen Square, the same inspiration I felt whenever I watched grainy footage of Freedom Riders or John Lewis and his fellow civil rights soldiers marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. To see ordinary people sloughing off fear and habit to act on their deepest beliefs, to see young people risking everything just to have a say in their own lives, to try to strip the world of the old cruelties, hierarchies, divisions, falsehoods, and injustices that cramped the human spirit—that, I had realized, was what I believed in and longed to be a part of.

However, aspirational marketing decrees that we “need” a master suite, bedrooms for each child, his-and-her bathrooms, and kitchens with professional grade appliances; otherwise, we haven’t quite “made it.” Square footage becomes a status symbol; and naturally, it takes many more sofas, chairs, tables, knickknacks, and other stuff to outfit a larger house.

fit for them. Steve Jobs said it best: “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Linus wanted an apartment in Murray Hill, but I sold him a townhouse in Park Slope. This didn’t happen because I just told him where it was, when it was built, and what the square footage was; based on what I knew about Linus I believed it was the best choice for him—and that he would love it. Closing a deal is about tapping into emotions. The sooner you can learn to take off the “salesman’s hat” and get in tune with your client’s emotions and desires, the better you’ll become at working the deal. If you’re not sure how to do that, remember what makes an exceptional salesperson: a salesperson who works for The Deal.

Our dysfunctional culture sends mixed signals about manhood. The world of sports tells me that authentic masculinity is linked to athleticism, physical strength, and winning the game. In short, muscles make the man. The world of finance suggests that my worth is directly tied to the size of my bank account, the square-footage of my house, the brand of watch I wear, and the make and model of car I drive. In other words, money makes the man. Then Hollywood tells me that real manhood is measured by how long I can last in bed and how many women I’ve had sex with. The clear message is: a penis makes a man. To add to that chorus, popular music today tells young urban men that their masculine value is boosted if they act tough, beat up women, use profanity, abuse drugs, outsmart the police, and drink as much alcohol as possible. If they do all these things, someone on the street will reward them by saying, “You da man!” So these guys grow up thinking that bad behavior makes a man, especially if it involves impregnating as many women as possible—and leaving those women with black eyes, bruises, and broken hearts in the process.

I think the universe is infinite, but the terms “infinity” and “eternity” are abstractions that have no physical correlation. The possibility that matter can act as its own architect and create the human eye or brain strikes me as irrational. The great mystery for me has always been the presence of evil in the human breast. Animals kill in order to survive. The record of humankind is so bad we cannot look at it squarely in the face or dwell on its memory lest we become subsumed by it. No? Try watching the 1937 Japanese footage of their own crimes in Nanking. Or the footage from Auschwitz or Dachau or photographs from My Lai. Or read medieval accounts of disembowelment and burning of a condemned man’s entrails, followed by the drawing and quartering of his body, all of it performed alive.

Indians are great appraisers of property. It is the clearest way of seeing where someone is in the world. What is caste compared to square footage? The best valuers are prospective mothers-in-law, of course, but every one of us has the gene.

before,” he said. I tilted my head and took a good look at the space. “Was it just like this? The layout, I mean. Did you have places to sit?” “There were two tables,” he said. I walked toward the curtained-off nook, thinking about the current placement of the bookshelves. There was a lot of wasted space. The building was sizable, and Joe had everything spread out. It did make it feel open and airy, but it wasn’t a very efficient use of the square footage. “What if we had more seating?” I asked. “Not just a couple of tables, put there as an afterthought, but a whole section. There’s room if we move things around.” I gestured toward the rear of the store. “And we’re using that whole area for storage, but couldn’t we put that stuff in the back room? It would free up a ton of space.” “Space for what?” “For people.” I paused for a moment, thinking. “What if this wasn’t just a bookstore? What if it was like… a gathering place? We need ways to encourage people to come in and shop here, instead of ordering online or going to one of the big chain stores.” “Well, sure,” he said. “That’s why we have our local authors section, and the staff recommendations. Those are popular with customers.” “Yeah, but is it enough?” I asked. “If you had places for people to sit, you could host some of those local authors. Invite them to do readings. Open it up to book

By square footage, there is more housing for each car in the United States than there is housing for each person.

Space. It means different things to different people. Room to grow and explore, the square footage of a home, the distance between ourselves and someone else. And then there are the spaces deep within ourselves where our memories and dreams exist, stuck in time between what was and what could’ve been.

We live in a culture of more. A culture of gaping, unquenchable lust. For everything. Lust for more food, more drink, more clothes, more devices, more apps, more things, more square footage, more experiences, more stamps on the passport—more.

Ambition was a quality they defined in a very specific way, having to do with the quantity of financial resources available, square footage of houses owned, brand names of automobiles driven, stature of job titles held. These people never considered that ambition could be directed toward a quieter life, a life that took far less of a toll on a person and a place. Dix

Ever since 1997 I have never had a job that required me to actually show up and physically be there.    Oh sure, the boss required I show up, suffer a commute and spend thousands of dollars every year on gas and parking, but there was no real reason for me to be there.  It could all be done over the internet from a home office.    The internet is a game changer in that it has made location irrelevant.  It has obsoleted the corporate office and cubicle.  It has rendered the billions of square footage in downtown skyscrapers obsolete.  It has made commuting unnecessary.  It is only because of a bunch of close-minded, short-sighted, aging gray-hairs that people are forced to work at an office.  But just because the gray hairs like doing things “the old fashioned way,” doesn’t mean you have to suffer a similar such fate.   While

It was late one night at the hotel bar in Johannesburg when Bill told me his daughter is “a very unusual person.” That she was. A couple of nights later, over a South African chardonnay at the Serena Hotel in Kampala, I suggested to Chelsea that we check out the market in the morning. “It’s supposed to be the biggest market in East Africa,” I said. “Actually, in terms of square footage, Nairobi would dispute that,” Chelsea replied.

But Elizabeth wasn’t having that. Mama Rosa couldn’t stand her from day one - and didn’t make any bones about that fact. So if she thought Elizabeth was going to lose square footage over her hunger pangs, she had another thought coming. Elizabeth fussed and cussed, but Kenneth still wouldn’t listen. One day as they were eating breakfast, she told Kenneth that she was going back to work unless he bought her the house she wanted. That did the trick. Kenneth didn’t want his kids raised by a babysitter. So Elizabeth won, and that wicked witch he called Mama, lost.

Companies don't want anyone telling them how to deal with their workers  -- they never have; they never will. Stores don't want anyone telling them how to design their entrances; how many steps they can have (or can't have); how heavy their doors can be. Yet they accept their city's building and fire codes, dictating to them how many people they can have in their restaurants, based on square footage, so that the place will not be a fire hazard. They accept that the city can inspect their electrical wiring to ensure that it "meets code" before they open for business. Yet they chafe if an individual wants an accommodation. Because, it seems, it is seen as "special for the handicapped," most of whom likely don't deserve it. Accommodation is fought doubly hard when it is seen to be a way of letting "the disabled" have a part of what we believe is for "normal" people. Although no access code, anywhere, requires them, automatic doors remain the one thing, besides flat or ramped entrances, that one hears about most from people with mobility problems: they need automatic doors as well as flat entrances. Yet no code, anywhere, includes them; mandating them would be "going too far"; giving the disabled more than they have a right to. A ramp is OK. An automatic door? That isn't reasonable. At least that's what the building lobby says. Few disability rights groups, anywhere, have tried to push for that accommodation. Some wheelchair activists are now pressing for "basic, minimal access" in all new single-family housing, so, they say, they can visit friends and attend gatherings in others' homes. This means at least one flat entrance and a bathroom they can get into. De-medicalization No large grocery or hotel firm, no home-and-garden discount supply center would consider designing an entrance that did not include automatic doors. They are standard in hotels and discount warehouses. Not, of course, for the people who literally can not open doors by themselves  -- for such people are "the disabled": them, not us. Firms that operate hotels, groceries and building supply stores fight regulations that require they accommodate "the disabled." Automatic doors that go in uncomplainingly are meant for us, the fit, the nondisabled, to ensure that we will continue to shop at the grocery or building supply center; to make it easy for us to get our grocery carts out, our lumber dollies to our truck loaded with Sheetrock for the weekend project. So the bellhops can get the luggage in and out of the hotel easily. When it is for "them," it is resisted; when it is for "us," however, it is seen as a design improvement. Same item; different purpose

The spray trucks featured in so much television footage from South America were largely useless publicity ploys. Governments liked them because people found them reassuring. But against Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, relying heavily on street fogging was almost counterproductive: they bred near houses and slipped indoors as soon as they could, following the carbon dioxide vapor trail of human breath. As the trucks drove by, people closed their windows, thereby protecting the mosquitoes. TV footage of soldiers emptying standing water was also good publicity; but as soon as it rained, neighborhoods were back to square one.

Big Sister Shen tells me this used to be a sleepy fishing village. But with the economic reforms and the opening up of China, urbanization brought construction everywhere. To get more compensation when the government exercised its eminent domain powers, villagers raced to build tall towers on their land so as to maximize the square footage of the residential space. But before they could cash in, real estate prices had risen to the point where even the government could no longer afford to pay compensation. These hastily erected buildings remain like historical ruins, witnesses to history.

Every year millions of American men buy televisions in order to watch football. The various companies that produce TVs are aware of this, and try to run advertisements for their contraptions that feature games. Unfortunately, the NFL only sells footage to its official television company. That means if, say, Zenith is the NFL’s TV of choice, Panasonic, Sony, and myriad other entities can’t use league action. “So every year—every single year—I get calls from the companies, wanting to purchase USFL stock footage,” Cohen said. “I averaged about $100,000 a year for a long time. Dom was right.” Don’t blink, or you might miss ubiquitous snippets of USFL game footage. That game Julie Taylor was watching in the student lounge on Friday Night Lights? Blitz-Bandits at Tampa Stadium. The “Bubble Bowl” game in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “Band Geeks”? Bandits-Showboats at the Liberty Bowl. A Scientology advertisement stars Anthony Carter scoring a touchdown for the Panthers; Russ Feingold, a United States senator running for reelection in 2010, ran a spot with Gamblers receivers Clarence Verdin and Gerald McNeil dancing in the end zone;