It is difficult to separate oneself from one's design moralities.

The difference between good and bad architecture is the time you spend on it.

A building is no good if someone's got to explain to you why it's good. You can't say you don't know enough about architecture - that's ridiculous. It's got to work on many levels.

You don't restore 'The Last Supper' by filling in the missing bits - you preserve. You accept the material that has somehow survived.

I suppose I'm trying to build an architecture that's as timeless as possible, although we're all creatures of our age.

I may not be the most interesting architect, but I'm still out there and have maintained some position of integrity.

Most architects work in ­studios largely divorced from academia, as if ideas, criticism and ­historical ­research were irrelevant.

I don't think architecture is radical. How can something that takes years and costs millions be radical?

Britain gets the architecture it deserves. We don’t value architecture, we don’t take it seriously, we don’t want to pay for it and the architect isn’t trusted.

If you look at a building by Mies van der Rohe, it might look very simple, but up close, the sheer quality of construction, materials and thought are inspirational.

Britain loves a bargain, but you don't get good, lasting architecture on the cheap.

my friends don't seem to be friends at all but people whose phone numbers I haven't lost.

Sitting meditation begins with good posture.

Love is blind. Especially in the morning, because I can't see a damn thing before having coffee.

I have never gone on a real trip, never taken a holiday. The best holiday for me is spent in my workshops when nearly everybody else is on vacation.

And from the first declension of the flesh I learnt man's tongue, to twist the shapes of thoughts Into the stony idiom of the brain.

Our language, one of our most precious natural resources, deserves at least as much protection as our woodlands, streams and whooping cranes.

People living their lives for you on TV; They say they're better than you, and you agree.

the point is that there are always answers.

Sometimes during a ballet I'll look around and see all these rows of intent faces, concentrating on this beautiful thing up on the stage.

When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil.