A piazza is not a plaza. The plaza is the theme park of the piazza; the plaza is the commercial version. A piazza is an empty space with no function. This is what Europeans understand.

You can put down a bad book; you can avoid listening to bad music; but you cannot miss the ugly tower block opposite your house.

Light has not just intensity, but also a vibration, which is capable of roughening a smooth material, of giving a three-dimensional quality to a flat surface.

If you have total freedom, then you are in trouble. It's much better when you have some obligation, some discipline, some rules. When you have no rules, then you start to build your own rules.

Architects have to dream, we have to search for our Atlantises, to be explorers, adventurers, and yet to build responsibly and well.

When a man is not satisfied with a house where he lives, he becomes an architect

Architecture is art, but art vastly contaminated by many other things. Contaminated in the best sense of the word – fed, fertilised by many things.

You have to accept as an architect to be exposed to criticism. Architecture should not rely on full harmony

A museum is a place where one should lose one's head.

Architecture is an imposed art in some ways, imposed upon the public, so people must be sure about what you're doing. You have to be sure about what you're doing.

Knowing how to do things not just with the head, but with the hands as well: this might seem a programmatic and ideological goal. It is not. It is a way of safeguarding creative freedom.

Between a man and a woman, betrayal is not the ultimate sin. It is the withdrawal and departure from one another devoid of a decent just!

I've had everything pierced at some point.

May each of my grandsons know, at an early age, what his life's ambition is -- and may he be successful in his pursuit of that goal.

Sometimes a journey arises out of hope and instinct, the heady conviction, as your finger travels along the map: Yes, here and here ... and here. These are the nerve-ends of the world.

If your friends never make you uncomfortable. You don't have friends. You have fans.

Never ever ever give up. You can change and move around but NEVER ever give up

I never wanted anyone to think that I would use my family name to get me anywhere.

Yeah I think Pitch Black was edgy, I think that's what worked for our film.

It was just so elaborate and so luxurious. We had every gadget imaginable. You know, I had the little gun that came out, and I had the little gun in the heel of the shoe.

There's three things in this world that you need: Respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.