Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.

Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves.

Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow.

Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.