First you have to learn to do something, then you can go out and do it.

No design is possible until the materials with which you design are completely understood

Architecture is a language. When you are very good, you can be a poet

Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.

God is in the details.

We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself... New materials are not necessarily superior. Each material is only what we make it.

A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous.

I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.

We must be as familiar with the functions of our building as with our materials. We must learn what a building can be, what it should be, and also what it must not be.

It is better to be good than to be original.

Architecture is the will of the age conceived in spatial terms.

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.

Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.

Most mysteries are soluble in time.

Do you know the best thing about broken hearts? They can only really break once the rest is just scratches.

Chastity is more a state of mind than of anatomy.

To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.

Life is very, very simple and easy to understand, but we complicate it with the beliefs and ideas that we create.

I only ever run when there's some point to it - say, if it's in a game of tennis.

The climate change argument is absolute crap

My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember.