Will McDonough Quotes

To eliminate the concept of waste means to design things-products, packaging, and systems-from the very beginning on the understanding that waste does not exist.

Designing renders visible our hopes and dreams. It is the first signal of human intentions.

Waste equals food, whether it's food for the earth, or for a closed industrial cycle. We manufacture products that go from cradle to grave. We want to manufacture them from cradle to cradle.

The Stone Age did not end because humans ran out of stones. It ended because it was time for a re-think about how we live.

If anybody here has trouble with the concept of design humility, reflect on this: It took us 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage.

In the end, the question is not, how do we use nature to serve our interests? It's how can we use humans to serve nature's interest?'

Here's where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good.

Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power – economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.

The surest way to heal an eco-system is to connect it to more of itself.

If we think about things having multiple lives, cradle to cradle, we could design things that can go back to either nature or back to industry forever.

Sustainability takes forever. And that's the point.

You don't filter smokestacks or water. Instead, you put the filter in your head and design the problem out of existence.

Design is inherently optimistic. That is its power.

Designers are inherently optimistic people who try to make the world a better place

I think as designers we realize design is a signal of intention, but it also has to occur within a world and we have to understand that world in order to imbue our designs with inherent intelligence.

It would be nice if all that exuberance and abundance was connected to a deep ethos of planetary responsibility.

Honor commerce as the engine of change.

How do we love all the children of all species for all time?

If design is the first signal of human intention.

Richard Meier told me, 'Young man, solar energy has nothing to do with architecture.'

We are not a green standard, we are a quality standard. We're different, we're multi dimensional.

The ability of players to jump teams when their contracts are up has hurt fan loyalty.

I just think it is so delightful to see people, let their elbows free. I think the exuberance of it all is really exciting to me. It's a signal of the abundance of diversity and creative expression.

In planetary terms, we're all downstream.

Sunday afternoons at a parish center - or a community center - is familiar territory for me.

I've been very fortunate to be involved in all the Super Bowls, to see some World Series, to cover heavyweight championship fights; I've been to the Olympics and seen every sporting event there is.

I think the most important thing I learned from my dad is the importance of telling the truth...treat other people well, work hard at the job and tell the truth.

I am working right at both the levels- with the most wealthy clients in the world, but also the poorest. I spend half my time designing for people that have nothing.

Carbon in your body - that's good thing. In a tree, it's good. In the atmosphere, it's a bad. Nature wants to sequester carbon in biota. And when we burn it, we release it. It's the wrong system.

A lot of times your best sales rep, that A++ player, kills it on a regular basis...but can never describe how they do it. They look at sales as an art, not a science.

Preventing radicalization that leads to violence here in America is part of our larger strategy to decisively defeat al Qaeda.

I received $100 per week when I started working at the Globe after graduation.

We prefer to talk about 100% renewable instead of zero carbon. When you say zero carbon, you are not positively defined.

Imagine walking into a grocery there is a jar sitting there with a lid on it saying it's not carbon. That is ridiculous. It's an empty jar.

The problem I have with carbon as a bad thing issue, is that people go out and say they want to be zero carbon. You see it everywhere.

This idea that things are designed to go back to nature or industry for ever which is our articulation of these two metabolisms are actually a discovery not an invention.

I'd so much rather have exciting architecture that causes one to stop, breathe, and reflect on the potential of the human mind, the craft, and exploring things.

I'd rather have that dialogue right now than only the other one, which is starting at such a basic level, that we start rearranging stuff on the Titanic, trying to be less bad with ordinary stuff.

You need that same creative force that exists in a building like Disney [Walt Disney Concert Hall] to actually tackle that most prosaic of problems.

We realized we don't have an invention, that's why we gave it away.

It's going to sound strange probably. But I really like Frank Gehry's works.

All these corporate reports say they want zero carbon. Well that is ridiculous, because you are not telling us what you are, you are telling us what you are not.

The future is electronic. It's radio, television and the Internet; it's not really newspapers anymore.

If you don't have an end game of something delightful, you're just moving chess pieces around.

I don't think there is enough educational programming, but unfortunately, television is built around advertising and those shows don't get the big ratings.

Being religious is quintessentially American.

The bottom line is this. When it comes to preventing violent extremism and terrorism in the United States, Muslim Americans are not part of the problem, you're part of the solution.

I grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota in a proud Catholic family.

We've seen some good progress, some good forward momentum. We have about Republican senators who have now indicated that they'll meet with Judge Merric Garland.

I’m indebted to the teachers who shaped me - from the Sisters of St. Joseph at St. Croix Catholic elementary to the monks of St. John’s in Minnesota to my professors at Georgetown.