Frank Gehry

I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope.

The best advice I've received is to be yourself. The best artists do that.

When I went to Harvard and studied planning, I found I didn't have the skills or the strength to become the kind of public person who could go out and lobby government agencies.

Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.

My father was an urchin that lived in Hell's Kitchen. He was part of a family of nine. I mean, there were times that were better and worse, but mostly, by the time we got to L.A., they'd lost whatever they had. And it was a sad time. And both he and I became truck drivers for different companies.

And I realized, when I'd come in to the meetings with these corrugated metal and chain link stuff, and people would just look at me like I'd just landed from Mars. But I couldn't do anything else. That was my response to the people and the time.

This neo-minimalism super cold stuff is weird to me. I need a place where I can come home and take my shoes off.

My father probably - he had flashes of creativity - he used to do store windows for fruit stores that he worked in and stuff.

I can't just decide myself what's being built. Someone decides what they want, then I work for them.

Some people may say my curved panels look like sails. Well, I am a sailor, so I guess I probably do use that metaphor in my work - though not consciously.

Well, I've always just - I've never really gone out looking for work. I always waited for it to sort of hit me on the head.

The fact is I'm an opportunist. I'll take materials around me, materials on my table, and work with them as I'm searching for an idea that works.