Sometimes I have to accept a job I don't really want. Hardly anybody comes up to you with a commission; it's all competitions these days.

I strive for an architecture from which nothing can be taken away.

A good engineer thinks in reverse and asks himself about the stylistic consequences of the components and systems he proposes.

The architecture profession has lost a lot of its integrity, especially in the USA. The general architect here has no scruples, no ambitions.

Transparency is not the same as looking straight through a building: it's not just a physical idea, it's also an intellectual one.

Higher ceilings allow the use indirect lighting, which is much healthier and reduces glare.

When I think of some of my earlier work, it really seems a fortunate coincidence that I succeeded.

A building is hard to judge. It takes many years to find out whether it works. It's not as simple as asking the people in the office whether they like it.

You'd never think of taking a cab if you had to walk a mile down Chicago's Michigan Avenue. But in a bad city you take a cab just to go around the corner.

The American attitude towards efficiency and execution should always underlie architecture.

Every building is a prototype. No two are alike.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.

The ecstasy of love is a paradise.

The greatest and noblest pleasure which we have in this world is to discover new truths, and the next is to shake off old prejudices.

The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first

Amy: This time can we... lose the bunk beds? The Doctor: No Bunk beds are cool, a bed with a ladder, you can't beat that!

But can I tell the genuine-article Italian from the poseur Italian? No. To me they all seem like poseurs.

It isn't that the lies are too beautiful to resist. It's that the truth is too hideous to face.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

The artist is still a little like the old court jester. He's supposed to speak his vicious paradoxes with some sense in them, but he isn't part of whatever the fabric is that makes a nation.

I believe in taking what happens as inevitable.