I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it; to make something new of it; not to deny it. The riches of history can be plucked at any point.
Interpretation
Tradition should be embraced and enhanced rather than rejected.
In this quote, Philip Johnson emphasizes the importance of tradition in creative endeavors. He suggests that one should not simply adhere to tradition but instead take it as a foundation to innovate and create something new, thereby celebrating the richness of history while contributing to its evolution.
In practice
In a speech about modern art, you could use this quote to highlight the value of tradition in artistic innovation.
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.
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.
The future of architecture is culture.
Architecture is art, nothing else.
Those with prodigious skill in music are better suited for all things.
Conceptually, I am open to mistakes - errors, actually. I do play lots of wrong notes while I am making some music, and a mistake or a wrong note is like a gift for me: 'Oh, wow, an unknown sound or an unknown harmony. I didn't know about this.'
And it was always the stories that needed the telling that gave us the rope we could cross any river with. They balanced us high above any crevasse. They made us be natural acrobats. They made us brave. They met us well. They changed us. It was in their nature to.
If we don't tell our own stories, no one else will.
Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.
The last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling-and it washed over me.
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