To me, the nicest luxury would be to have a room where I could keep all my books in one place - and have space for more.

I was brought up to reuse things.

So much of what makes a room great is how you enter and circulate through it, how it addresses the body.

When you have rules to abide by, does that curtail you as a designer, or set you free? People think of classical architecture visually, but I think the brilliant part of it is actually spatial.

All clients think that they are architects.

Tension is an interesting quality - and architecture must have it. There should be elements of the inexplicable, the mysterious, and the poetic in something that is perfectly rational.

The secret of good architecture is having more than meets the eye.

I make spaces that are calm rather than confrontational. I seek a certain kind of logic that allows you to move in space and perceive it as beautiful and rational. Clarity is a worthwhile quality.

One of the things I've always loved about New York is there is so much precedent for ornament on industrial buildings.

What I do isn't radical. It's just distinct in small ways.

When everything is perfectly orderly and understandable, there has to be one thing that puts everything into question.

Security is a strange thing, a myth that the brain allows in exchange for a brief moment of peace.

When you said no time for love, I heard needy expression of love.

The four stages of man are infancy, childhood, adolescence, and obsolescence.

Am I the Irish comedian with half a finger? No, I'm the Irish comedian with nine and a half fingers.

I'm not on a mission. I'm not a paragon of health for anybody. I'm not going to run a marathon or model for 'Men's Health' or go on bike rides with Lance Armstrong. I'm not. Trust me.

Since my accident I am a little more mindful of the suffering of other people.

There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves.

All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.

My grandmother passed at 104. She sang and wrote songs until she passed.

I like guts in my leaders.