Look, architecture has a lot of places to hide behind, a lot of excuses. "The client made me do this." "The city made me do this." "Oh, the budget." I don't believe that anymore.
Frank GehryRead
Your best work is your expression of yourself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of personal expression in creative work.
Frank Gehry, a renowned architect, suggests that the highest quality of one's work comes from being authentically oneself. This principle highlights the connection between individual identity and creativity, implying that when people infuse their true selves into their work, it results in more impactful and genuine creations.
Themes
ArtExpressionCreativityIdentityAuthenticity
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about creativity at a local art workshop.
More from Frank Gehry
All quotes βMy only extravagance in life is my sailboat. I'm bonkers about that, but other than that, I don't spend money on myself.
Frank GehryRead
For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn't do it.
Frank GehryRead
Liquid architecture. It's like jazz - you improvise, you work together, you play off each other, you make something, they make something. And I think it's a way of - for me, it's a way of trying to understand the city, and what might happen in the city.
Frank GehryRead
An architect is given a program, budget, place, and schedule. Sometimes the end product rises to art - or at least people call it that.
Frank GehryRead
I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.
Frank GehryRead
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Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and rhythms so beautifully.
Johannes BrahmsRead
I wept when the muse Ulla bent over me. Blinded by tears I could not prevent her from kissing me, I could not prevent the Muse from giving me that terrible kiss. All of you who have ever been kissed by the Muse will surely understand that Oskar, once branded by that kiss, was condemned to take back the drum he had rejected years before, the drum he had buried in the sand of Sapse Cemetery.
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I sense Light as the giver of all presences, and material as spent Light. What is made by Light casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.
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One begins by plaguing oneself to no purpose in order to be true to nature, and one concludes by working quietly from one's own palette alone, and then nature is the result.
Vincent Van GoghRead
I looked at myself, and I just said, 'Well, you know, I can sing, but I'm not the greatest singer in the world. I can play guitar very well, but I'm not the greatest guitar player in the world.' So I said, 'Well, if I'm going to project an individuality, it's going to have to be in my writing.'
Bruce SpringsteenRead
Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.
Stephen KingRead