Quotessence
Home / Topics / Plumbing Quotes

Plumbing Quotes

Browse 91 quotes about Plumbing.

Related topics

IfsPeoplePlumberThinkingWriting

Plumbing Quotes

“The train bore me away, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap-iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her—her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever-seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that ‘It isn’t the same for them as it would be for us,’ and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her—understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe.”

PovertyDespairEnglandHopelessness1930sSlumsSocial ClassPlumbingTrains
Book:The Road to Wigan Pier
Create image

“They're installing a boiler system," Pandora said, flipping through a book. "It's a set of two large copper cylinders filled with water pipes that are heated by gas burners. One never has to wait for the hot water- it comes at once through expansion pipes attached to the top of the boiler." "Pandora," Kathleen asked suspiciously, "how do you know all that?" "The master plumber explained it to me." "Dear," Helen said gently, "it's not seemly for you to converse with a man when you haven't been introduced. Especially a laborer in our home." "But Helen, he's old. He looks like Father Christmas." "Age has nothing to do with it," Kathleen said crisply. "Pandora, you promised to abide by the rules." "I do," Pandora protested, looking chagrined. "I follow all the rules that I can remember." "How is it that you remember the details of a plumbing system but not basic etiquette?" "Because plumbing is more interesting.”

SystemPlumbingPandora Ravenel
Book:Cold-Hearted Rake
Create image

“Imagine hiring a plumber who shows up, looks at your fucked plumbing, then announces, 'I shall return thousands, millions or billions of years from now and then I will fix all the plumbing and everything will be perfect. Trust me. Honest, Guv.' What would you do? Put up with your fucked plumbing and pray every day to the Plumber Messiah who never comes and never fixes any plumbing, or hire a different plumber who actually does his fucking job and fixes your broken plumbing? The idea of a Messiah who shows up and is so clueless and inept that he can’t think of anything better than committing 'suicide by Romans' is like the darkest comedy sketch ever. Jesus Christ is not a plumber who fixes the plumbing. This is a plumber who shows up and wrecks the plumbing, then promises to come back, but never does.”

ReligionChristianityPlumbingWaiting For GodotSecond ComingGhostingNo Show
Author:David Sinclair
Create image

“Select Plumbers believes that every home deserves reliable, honest, and high-quality plumbing solutions. Whether it’s a minor leak or a major emergency, our team is committed to delivering fast service, expert workmanship, and long-lasting results you can trust. Your comfort and safety are always our priority, and we stand by our promise to provide dependable plumbing support whenever you need it. Learn more at selectplumbingandgas.com.au”

Plumbing
Author:Select Plumbers
Create image

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

PhilosophyWaterSocietyTheoryActivityRainRiversAngerExcellenceHumbleTolerateScornPipeExaltedBe HumblePlumberPlumbingGood Philosophy
Book:Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?
Create image

“The Loneliness One dare not sound -- And would as soon surmise AS in its Grave go plumbing To ascertain the size -- The Loneliness whose worst alarm Is lest itself should see -- And perish from before itself For just a scrutiny -- The Horror not to be surveyed -- But skirted in the Dark -- With Consciousness suspended -- And Being under Lock -- I fear me this -- is Loneliness -- The Maker of the soul Its Caverns and its Corridors Illuminate -- or seal”

ShouldSoulSoundDarkConsciousnessWorstLonelinessHorrorSizeDareGravesMakersLocksAlarmsSealsScrutinySuspendedCorridorsPlumbingCavernsFear Me
Book:The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Create image

“We have grown accustomed to the wonders of clean water, indoor plumbing, laser surgery, genetic engineering, artificial joints, replacement body parts, and the much longer lives that accompany them. Yet we should remember that the vast majority of humans ever born died before the age of 10 from an infectious disease.”

ShouldHumansBodyAgeRememberWaterBornWonderDiseaseDiedMajorityCleanArtificialEngineeringSurgeryAccustomedJointsAccompanyReplacementsClean WaterLasersPlumbingGenetic EngineeringInfectious DiseasesLonger LifeIndoor Plumbing
Author:S. Jay Olshansky
Create image

“One of the things I like about my job is that it draws on the entire person: not just your knowledge of grammar and punctuation and usage and foreign languages and literature but also your experience of travel, gardening, shipping, singing, plumbing, Catholicism, midwesternism, mozzarella, the A train, New Jersey. And in turn it feeds you more experience.”

PersonsJobsTurnsLiteratureLanguageSingingDrawsTrainCatholicismGardeningGrammarJerseyNew JerseyUsagePunctuationForeign LanguagePlumbingShippingMozzarella
Book:Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
Create image

“Business, life itself, is damned hard work if you wanna be good at it. Actually, that's precisely wrong. Business ceases to be work when you're chasing a dream that has engorged you. ("Work should be more fun than fun" - Noel Coward.) And if the passion isn't there. then biotech and plumbing will be equal drags.”

IfsShouldHardDreamPassionFunBusinessHard WorkEqualBe GoodCeaseCowardDragChasingPlumbingBusiness LifeNoelBiotech
Book:The Pursuit of Wow!: Every Person's Guide to Topsy-Turvy Times
Create image

“My house got flooded in Los Angeles and completely ruined it. People asked how did your house flood on the hills in LA? It was a plumbing problem that the landlord didn't fix, so everything got ruined there. It's one of those things where you take the opportunity and run with it. My producers are here and we're working on the new album here, and I was here all of the time so it made sense to spend some time here, so we'll just see what happens. It's definitely very different.”

PeopleMadeDifferentProblemHappensRunningOpportunityHouseAlbumsProducersHillsLos AngelesFloodRuinedLandlordPlumbing
Author:DJ Rap
Create image

“It was only in the late nineteenth century and then the twentieth century, with the maturation of consumer capitalism, that a shift was made toward the cultivation of unbounded desire. We must appreciate this to realize that late modern consumption, consumption as we now know it, is not fundamentally about materialism or the consumption of physical goods. Affluence and consumer-oriented capitalism have moved us well beyond the undeniable efficiencies and benefits of refrigeration and indoor plumbing.”

KnowsWellsMadeDesireRealizingModernCenturyBenefitsLateCapitalismAppreciateMovedConsumersMaterialismGoodsConsumptionEfficiencyConsumerismTwentieth CenturyNineteenth CenturyOverconsumptionCultivationAffluencePlumbingIndoor Plumbing
Author:Rodney Clapp
Create image

“Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.”

MindChildrenCareTeachTeacherTeachingModernSadPaidAppreciationHarmSkepticismSkepticGreat TeacherGood TeacherBest TeacherCynicTeaching ChildrenTeachers And TeachingInspirational TeacherGreat TeachingBeing A TeacherPlumbingGood TeachingPresidents Day
Author:John F. Kennedy
Create image

“Artists talk about art in sort of straightforward terms, more like the way you talk about plumbing fixtures. Does it function well? Does it bring the hot water up from the cellar efficiently, or does it lose too much thermodynamic energy in the process? Artists are also very ruthless with each other and can be very brutal in evaluating each other's work because their criteria is almost more mechanistic. Does it do what it's supposed to be doing in an efficient way? That doesn't mean that intention is not part of the conversation, but it's not the foreground.”

MeanArtArtistEnergyTermWaterHotIntentionBrutalStraightforwardPlumbing
Author:David Salle
Create image

“All over the US, there is a need to teach young people to, really, get them out in the backyard, building treehouses, fixing bicycles, because you become a better, more well-rounded, Renaissance personality if you actually know how to do things with your hands. If you can fix the screen door or replace your old garbage disposal, even change the tire on a car, a lot of people don't even know how to do that. We're literally running out of people who know how to do those things, the essential things like plumbing, carpentry, stone masonry, we're literally running out of them.”

PeopleRunningTeachCarBuildingPersonalityTireBicyclePlumbingCarpentry
Author:John Ratzenberger
Create image

“If you think about the energy that a rocket engine has to put out and all the fuel and you're sitting on top of like a bomb. And on the Space Shuttle, that big orange tank is filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the white cell rocket boosters on the sides are filled with solid propellant. There's a lot of energy in all those chemicals there and you've got to control it in a way so it doesn't explode. So, there's a lot of plumbing, a lot of valving, a lot of control systems, and it's a very complicated thing. So, how do you bring the price of that down?”

ThinkingEnergyComplicatedPlumbing
Author:Leroy Chiao
Create image

“The basic thing is to be humble, and pretend you're a bartender in the tavern of life. Don't get too comfortable and don't really listen to anybody else. Don't stand around with a bunch of writers and talk about writing. You know when you see plumbers at a plumbers convention, usually they're not talking about plumbing: they're talking about whatever it is that two men happen to talk about. They're talking about sports, their wives and children. I just tell my students, don't talk about writing too much, just go out and do it. Find out whatever you need to get to the mainland.”

MenWritingChildrenSportsWifeStudentsHumbleBe HumblePlumberBartenderPlumbing
Author:James McBride
Create image