Frank Gehry

“I'm not a traditionalist. I'm a modern architect. I'm not a contextualist. I am a contextualist.”

“Your best work is your expression of yourself. Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, you're the only expert.”

“I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.”

“You can't redo sketches, but you can redo buildings.”

“Life is chaotic. It's messy. And it's not neat and tidy. You can't control it. Art is supposed to be a reflection of life. It's not an escape from it.”

“You've got to be optimistic to be an architect.”

“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

“In the end, the character of a civilization is encased in its structures.”

“For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did.”

“If I knew where I was going, I wouldn't do it.”

“Most buildings are artifacts that say what our culture is.”

“When you build a building, you're building a history.”

“Creativity is about play and a kind of willingness to go with your intuition. It's crucial to an artist.”

“Most of our cities were built on the backs of the poor. It's time to start building cities for people.”