“Any relationship between a building and its users is one of violence, for any use means the intrusion of a human body into a given space, the intrusion of one order into another.”

To really appreciate architecture, you may even need to commit a murder.

The general public will almost always stand behind the traditionalists. In the public eye, architecture is about comfort, about shelter, about bricks and mortar.

My apartment reflects my views as an architect. It is minimal, austere. The architecture doesn’t impose itself upon you. The apartment is a stage for other things to take place.

Concepts differentiate architecture from mere building…A bicycle shed with a concept is architecture; a cathedral without one is just a building.

Society secretly delights in crime, excesses, and violated prohibitions of all sorts.

Architecture is not so much a knowledge of form, but a form of knowledge.

I never talked about architecture with my father, which I regret

I laugh, and it’s laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place where everything I’ve ever known is coming apart.

The Bible says that our real problem is that every one of us is building our identity on something besides Jesus.

The building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.

To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it.

The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building.

At least 50 times. I’ve jumped off a building, jumped off a cliff in a car. I’ve been in bedrooms when women came in with knives and guns.

I don’t measure success by how many buildings have my name on it.

Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically – for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist – but then what isn’t?