Quotes from Frank Gehry

Talent is liquified trouble.

I've always believed that if you know what you're going to do, you won't do it. Your creativity starts with your curiosity.

Making art is an act of love and making love to the world.

You can't ignore history; you can't escape it even if you want to. You might as well know where you come from, and you might as well know that everything has been done in some shape or form.

Most of our cities built since the war are bland. They're modernist, they're cold, and now architects want to go back to that.

Everyone has a desire, if not a need, to use their individual signatures. Whenever people meet to talk about a project, even stuffy old businessmen, they say they want to create something new.

I don't micromanage the interiors. People ask me to and I say no. I don't want to control everything.

Democracy is a problem and we don't want to get rid of it.

I promised a lot of people I'd slow down when I turned 80.

A lot of people don't get it, but I design from the inside out so that the finished product looks inevitable somehow. I think it's important to create spaces that people like to be in, that are humanistic.

I'm a leftie, and I've always believed in doing things on a modest scale.

I have always thought that L.A. is a motor city that developed linear downtowns.

My only extravagance in life is my sailboat. I'm bonkers about that, but other than that, I don't spend money on myself.

There are a great many things about architecture that are hidden from the untrained eye.

There is a backlash against me and everyone who has done buildings that have movement and feeling.

You have freedom, so you have to make choices - and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It's a signature.

Democracy, obviously, is something we don't want to give up, but it does create chaos. It means the guy next door can do what he wants, and it creates a collision of thinking. In cities, that means people build whatever they want.

Your best work is your expression of yourself. Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, you're the only expert.

Your best work is your expression of yourself.

Not every person has the same kinds of talents, so you discover what yours are and work with them.

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.

I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don't get a lot of work sometimes.

Your work may be great and not make its way into the big picture... like Van Gogh... so who's to say what's good and bad?

We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that.