Glibness will get your anywhere. Philip Johnson More Quotes by Philip Johnson More Quotes From Philip Johnson 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. Philip Johnson wishdoeart 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. Philip Johnson stepsriversbelieve Scientific naturalism is a story that reduces reality to physical particles and impersonal laws, [and] portrays life as a meaningless competition among organisms that exist only to survive and reproduce. Philip Johnson scarylawreality To me, the drive for monumentality is as inbred as the desire for food and sex, regardless of how we denigrate it. Monuments differ in different periods. Each age has its own. Philip Johnson agedesiresex There's no worse feeling than seeing my buildings and realizing the mistakes. Philip Johnson realizingmistakefeelings Maybe, just maybe, we shall at last come to care for the most important, most challenging, surely the most satisfying of all architectural creations: building cities for people to live in. Philip Johnson citieschallengespeople Pick very few objects and place them exactly. Philip Johnson picksobjects 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. Philip Johnson walltalkingrooms Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space. Philip Johnson designspaceart 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. Philip Johnson tryinggivingworld When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art. Philip Johnson buildingarchitectureart I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner. Philip Johnson gadflieschameleon I call myself a traditionalist, although I have fought against tradition all my life. Philip Johnson tradition I guess I want to make money just like other people, perhaps more than most people. Philip Johnson making-moneywantpeople Early unsuccessess shouldn't bother anybody because it happens to absolutely everybody. Philip Johnson botherhappens 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. Philip Johnson thrillgenerationslooks Ninety-eight percent are boxes, which tells me that a lot of people are in denial. We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that. Most of what's around us is banal. We live with it. We accept it as inevitable. People say, "This is the world the way it is, and don't bother me." Then when somebody does something different, real architecture, the push-back is amazing. People resist it. At first it's new and scary. Philip Johnson scaryrealpeople All architects want to live beyond their deaths. Philip Johnson architecturewantdeath To sum up the state of architecture in America: ninety percent of the buildings we live in and around aren't architecture. No, that's not right - 98 percent. Philip Johnson buildingarchitecture Purpose is not necessary to make a building beautiful. Philip Johnson buildingpurposebeautiful
