Rather than getting more spoilt with age, as difficulties pile up, epiphanies of gratitude abound.

I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.

I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.

A good half of the art of living is resilience.

The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that.