Philip Johnson

“Dullness is the enemy.”

“You're going to change the world? Well, go ahead and try. You'll give it up at a certain point and change yourself instead.”

“Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.”

“There's only one reason for my whole life, and that's art. Nothing else counts; nothing else gives me pleasure; nothing else gives me satisfaction.”

“I like the thought that what we are to do on this earth is embellish it for its greater beauty, so that oncoming generations can look back to the shapes we leave here and get the same thrill that I get in looking back at theirs - at the Parthenon, at Chartres Cathedral.”

“I haven't any wisdom - just a child like everybody else. I'm not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright.”

“How does an artist know when the line that he just painted is good or not good? That's the catch. De Kooning was the greatest of my contemporaries in art, and he knew when he'd done a good line. When he didn't, he threw it away. I wish I'd thrown away some of mine.”

“Faith? Haven't any. I'm not a nihilist or a relativist. I don't believe in anything but change. I'm a Heraclitean - you can't step in the same river twice.”

“Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful.”

“I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.”

“Processionalism is primary - how you get from one place to another, the relationships and effects of spaces as you move about in them. That's worked out awfully well in the State Theater. I'm a 'straight-in' man myself; I'm too nervous, I like to know where I am. I also like to know where I'm going.”

“There's no such thing as old age. I'm no different now than I was 50 years ago. I'm just having more fun.”

“In my own work, I'd say I'm a classicist, but I look everywhere for my solutions. I don't study the toilet-living habits of my clients, although that's a popular approach. First, I think of every building in history that has been similar in purpose. Then I think of the functional program - that's a major part of the study.”

“I guess I can't be a great architect. Great architects have a recognizable style. But if every building I did were the same, it would be pretty boring.”

“I call myself a traditionalist, although I have fought against tradition all my life.”

“Doing a house is so much harder than doing a skyscraper.”

“The future of architecture is culture.”

“The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds.”

“It is wonderful to be in the country in a glass house, because no matter what happens out there, you're nice and safe, you know, cuddled in your little bed, and there it is, raging storms, snowing - wonderful.”

“Concrete you can mold, you can press it into - after all, you haven't any straight lines in your body. Why should we have straight lines in our architecture? You'd be surprised when you go into a room that has no straight line - how marvelous it is that you can feel the walls talking back to you, as it were.”