Next door to the Bensons is Emmet Frag, a retired pacemaker who is credited with inventing the notion of happiness. He’s currently working on a method for categorising ducks based on their singing voice. He’s also the owner of the world’s large...
When I was 18, I lived in Greenwich Village, New York, for nine months. At that time, I wanted to change the world, not through architecture, but through painting. I lived the artist's life, mingling with poets and writers, and working as a waiter. I...
How does an artist know when the line that he just painted is good or not good? That's the catch. De Kooning was the greatest of my contemporaries in art, and he knew when he'd done a good line. When he didn't, he threw it away. I wish I'd thrown awa...
For me, it does not 'miss' if (the Potteries Thinkbelt study) goes into the archive, not as an example of how railway carriages can be used for teaching, but as one of the most powerful question marks ever placed against the architecture of universit...
p5-what they need..is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It this this quality..what may ...
There is no one force, no group, and no class that is the preserver of liberty. Liberty is preserved by those who are against the existing chief power. Oppositions which do not express genuine social forces are as trivial, in relation to entrenched p...
For eventually one gets over reality’s affront to one’s innocence. One grows accustomed to the melancholy fact that we all sell ourselves at one time or another, that whoring is the dirty little secret of our success as human beings.
The term bohemian has a bad reputation because it's allied to myriad clichés, but Parisians originally adopted the term, associated with nomadic Gypsies, to describe artists and writers who stayed up all night and ignored the pressures of the indust...
Anyone who has become entranced by the sound of water drops in the darkness of a ruin can attest to the extraordinary capacity of the ear to carve a volume into the void of darkness. The space traced by the ear becomes a cavity sculpted in the interi...
There is no experience like having children.’ That’s all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to l...
I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on the good things still in my life. I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each every morning, a few tears, and that's all.
Mitch,if you're trying to show off for people at the top,forget it.They will look down at you anyhow.And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom,forget it.They will only envy you.Status will get you nowhere.Only an open heart will allow...
One is too precious about the past, the other too hungry for the future. One arm being dragged into the past by the ethics of historic preservation, the other being yanked towards a hopeful (bigger, brighter, better) future.
In a perfectly designed world —one with no history— we would not have to suffer everything from hemorrhoids to cancer.
All religious leaders and spiritual teachers emphasize finding a place within us that is true. People who obsessively follow these leaders instead of their own purpose attach to the spiritual leader and become fanatical and controlling. That's why Je...
To complete your daily mental hygiene, observe any part of you that is upset or anxious, and offer that part of yourself the following simple wishes: 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.' Repeat this until you actually ...
What happens when we're willing to feel bad is that, sure enough, we often feel bad - but without the stress of futile avoidance. Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests, and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes parts of us away an...
I like to use the analogy of going to the gym. If you go to the gym and your goal is, 'I want to look just like David Beckham,' then that drives you to do certain things. You may never look like Beckham, but it is a goal. Cities need the same thing. ...
Birds have nests that seem to be inherent. I think there must be some kind of extended phenotype for humans. People probably have, inherently inside them the perfect psychological space that can be grown or developed at multiple levels. Maybe it's a ...
It just tickles me still when you see Roger Clemens, as great as he is, throw a split-finger and the hitter just swings and misses. They don't see that ball that well. Jack Morris threw an awful good one and Mike Scott. There's a lot of great pitcher...
May I say, finally, that I have no illusions of grandeur; quite to the contrary, I am very humble in my knowledge that through forty years of my life my life has been an open book of service to my fellow architects and for the public good.
