My mind rebels at stagnation, give me problems, give me work!

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.

What can I say? I'm Irish, I love a good potato.

A lie set down on paper in wet ink becomes the truth when dry.

Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?

Not many architects have the luxury to reject significant things.

When the winds of life don't hit your sails, you grab the oars of life and you start pushing.

I'm vulnerable to criticism. Any artist is, because you work alone in your studio and, until recently, critics were the only way you'd get any feedback.

When you looked up to the sky and cried 'Why?' sometimes the sky shrugged, yet other times it answered with warm assurance of linked hands.

There is an ineffable but fatal difference in attitude between people behaving naturally and people behaving naturally for a camera.

But at least he can still see the lights below us. Although maybe for him it doesn't matter.

I've always been obsessed with things that are half animal and half human - like mermaids and Minotaurs - because they are trapped in an animal body. And I felt trapped in my own life.