Quotes from Marcel Wanders

The things I own are sacred.

I am quite familiar with Dubai and its design scene. I have been a regular visitor for more than 10 years. It is hard to name an area where hospitality, friendship, culture, ambition, and beauty are so highly regarded.

Ambition is a beautiful thing.

I think what makes me different is that... I am comfortable with expressing my vulnerability. I think designers often want to just put the loveable ideas out there. Ones that are imaginative but not very introspective. It is more rare for a designer to explore his or her disappointments and moments of disillusion and doubt.

By training, I'm an engineer, but I don't tell anyone because it bores people.

Inspiration has become this word that people tend to talk about as something from the outside. The truth is that... it is inside, like a burning fire: it is the feeling of certainty that your life has a meaning and you'll do something important.

I have a long list of how people call me: 'The Prince of Design,' 'Beethoven of Design,' 'the Dutch Prince of Design' and the list goes on and on and on... and also the 'Lady Gaga of Design!' I am fine with it. I think she is an amazing character who has innovated the music scene and is respected by so many people; she is surprising.

To transfer food into a bowl from a pan that you've just cooked in, it's a loss of energy; it's wasteful. People think it's very sophisticated, I don't think it's so smart.

A product can live on one great idea. An interior needs 1,000 great ideas to really live, which makes interior design a whole orchestration of this art of juxtaposition, placement, and combination.

I really feel that design has the capacity to communicate, and I really have concentrated on the communication of positive values.

Food can be a material, and you can use it as a way to project concepts.

I want to create a world with objects and surroundings that are human, more romantic, and less sterile.

I like swimming. I like the beach. I like fast cars. I like speedboats.

San Francisco is a lot like Amsterdam - free, open-minded and casual - though I expected better weather.

A lot of companies are able to do without design. A few companies are able to do without creativity. A very few. Creativity is crucial to your business.

My parents weren't cultured people.

I wanted to go beyond the sentiments and needs of daily life to create a sense of wonder and find a new space for design.

Everything has been done. It's not possible to create something completely new, something that has never been seen before. It's only possible to make new combinations, establish new connections between things we usually take for granted.

Designers have been uncreative and very arrogant. They need to listen to people. People have always wanted more exciting, interesting design, but we designers didn't see it.

I can't be boring. If people like my designs, then meet me and find out that I'm boring, they won't want my stuff.

Every project has its own logic and parameters. In some objects, functionality is primary, and in others, it is rather inconsequential.

I have been a designer all my life, and design, for me, is to share love and trust and show the future in a beautiful way. I have worked on this principle all my life.

The very best design, I feel, is that which resonates so deeply that people can't help but discover something within themselves when they see it.

The works we do in Moooi are very diverse, very eclectic. That's how we like it.