Quotes from I. M. Pei

I arrived in the U.S.A. in 1935, to San Francisco. I got the boat from China, and I didn't even speak English. I could read a little, perhaps write a little, but that was all. It was a 17-day journey, and I learnt to speak English from the stewards.

In northern architecture - the cathedrals of Europe and all the little churches - the details, the carving of stone, become necessary because the light is not there to help you very much. You have to enrich surfaces. The desert reduces form to its simplest nature. There is no need for gargoyles or flying buttresses in the desert.

Architecture is the very mirror of life. You only have to cast your eyes on buildings to feel the presence of the past, the spirit of a place; they are the reflection of society.

Stop worrying about missed opportunities and start looking for new ones.

Success is a collection of problems solved.

Great artists need great clients.

I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity.

Life is architecture and architecture is the mirror of life.

I want to bring out the best in a community and contribute something of permanent value.

Contemporary architects tend to impose modernity on something. There is a certain concern for history but it's not very deep. I understand that time has changed, we have evolved. But I don't want to forget the beginning. A lasting architecture has to have roots.

It is not an individual act, architecture. You have to consider your client. Only out of that can you produce great architecture. You cannot work in the abstract.

Let's do it right. This is for the ages.

At the beginning, I thought the best Islamic work was in Spain - the mosque in Cordoba, the Alhambra in Granada. But as I learned more, my ideas shifted. I traveled to Egypt, and to the Middle East many times.I found the most wonderful examples of Islamic work in Cairo, it turns out. I'd visited mosques there before, but I didn't see them with the same eye as I did this time. They truly said something to me about Islamic architecture.

You cannot defend your design without knowing what you're designing for.

Be the best, not necessarily the original.

Architecture must not do violence to space or its neighbors.

Design is something you have to put your hand to.

I've never left China. My family's been there for 600 years. But my architecture is not consciously Chinese in any sense. I'm a western architect.