Marsha Blackburn Quotes

We build roads and they cost two and three and four times what they're supposed to cost.

Cost overruns are not uncommon in architecture, particularly for designs that depart from structural or technological norms, or demand a finer quality of execution than commercial schemes - conditions typical of buildings for cultural institutions. Budgets are exceeded for many reasons, not all of them within an architect's control.

My buildings are all on budget.

We finally found out the technique of separating and getting information about where every train would be at any moment. Of course, I went over budget many times, because - as you go along - some things improved, and you get better ideas.

After announcing that the Stealth bomber would overrun by 16%, and would cost over half a billion:] Whatever it costs, it's worth it.

It almost seems an institutional phenomenon that [military weapons] projects start with gross underestimates by both Government and the contractor.

The cost overrun [for the C-5A] here is so much smaller as a percentage of what we expected it to be when we let the contract, that it is a great improvement.

History is rife with stories of directors who got so obsessed that their films went massively over budget - out of control.

As a scientist in charge of space sensors and entire space missions before I was at NASA, I myself was involved in projects that overran. But that's no excuse for remaining silent about this growing problem or failing to champion reform.

There is, apparently, some law of nature decreeing that all home construction must double in its projected cost and take four times longer than originally anticipated.

Like building a house, travel always costs more than you estimate.

Law Number XXIV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most costly action known to man.

Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

When I build something for somebody, I always add $50 million or $60 million onto the price. My guys come in, they say it's going to cost $75 million. I say it's going to cost $125 million, and I build it for $100 million. Basically, I did a lousy job. But they think I did a great job.

It quite often happens that they attach a name to a project and it doesn't get all the financing it needs.

It begins and ends with money. It's absurd in this day and age when we need so much money for education, health, for people, that a $100 million dollars can be spent on a film. It's obscene.

Nowadays the big Hollywood studios only make about three movies a year, and they cost about $200 million each. There's no room for error in that, and not a lot of room, I would think, for free expression.

I think with the smaller-scale projects, the burden for success falls more squarely on the shoulders of the actors and the director and the script.

We couldn't spend $91 billion if we wanted to.

How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.

Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers's Centre Georges Pompidou of 1971-1977 - the true prototype of the modern museum as popular architectural spectacle - wound up costing so much more than planned that the French government solved the shortfall by cutting support for several regional museums.

Everybody in the real world will agree - the moment a project is behind deadline, quality assurance tends to go out the window.

You know how many movies it took Tom Cruise before he was making 5, 6 million dollars? It probably took a billion dollars in box office.

Republicans went off track. We were spending too much money.

Ask anybody who has ever remodeled their house. There's always problems. They open up walls, they find this, they find that. There is always something. I'm in a business where you have to control those variables.