“A jostling scrum of office buildings so mediocre that the only way you ever remember them is by the frustration they induce – like a basketball team standing shoulder to shoulder between you and the Mona Lisa.”

I sometimes wonder if two thirds of the globe is covered in red carpet.

Do you seriously expect me to be the first Prince of Wales in history not to have a mistress?

I was totally absorbed. I was in another world, or another dimension; all sense of time evaporated.

As technology advances at an alarming pace, the place of drawing remains as valid as ever in the creation of art and architecture.

The demand for organic food is growing at a remarkable rate. Consumers have made it clear that they want organic produce and every sector of the food chain is responding, with the kind of results we have just seen.

The price of apparently cheap food is costing nothing less than the Earth!

There is no doubt that we live in an age of unprecedented, and sometimes terrifying, technological advance where the speed of advance so often outstrips the necessary ethical considerations.

To avert disaster, we have not only to teach men to make things but to teach them to have complete moral control over what they make.

Forests are the world’s air-conditioning system-the lungs of the planet-and we are on the verge of switching it off.

All I’m saying is that there is a price to be paid at the sharp end environmentally and everywhere else for the food that is produced in a particular way.

My Rainforests Project has three main elements. Firstly, to determine how much funding the rainforest countries need to re-orientate their economies so that the trees are worth more alive than dead.

Your greatest achievement is to love me.

The whole imposing edifice of modern medicine is like the celebrated tower of Pisa – slightly off balance.

I think we need to recover the depth, the subtlety, the generosity of imagination, the respect for wisdom that so marked Islam in its great ages.

If your children want to alter society, listen to their reasons and the idealism behind them. Don’t crush them with some clever remark straight away.

It seems to me self-evident that we cannot have capitalism without capital and, very importantly, that the ultimate source of all economic capital is Nature’s capital

Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

People residing within the cult of average don’t like to see others rise. It threatens their security, and spotlights their low self-worth. Go for great, no matter what they say.

It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.

The average call me obsessed, the successful call me for advice.

Average is a failing plan! Average doesn’t work in any area of life. Anything that you give only average amounts of attention to will start to subside and will eventually cease to exist.

First of all, I’m no better than the next person.

Critics only speak up when they see someone shining. Average work doesn’t threaten them.