David Shields Quotes
I am exhausted by traditional memoir. I am exhausted by the architecture of the conventional novel.
Quotes to Explore
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I read whenever possible, and I buy books all the time, sometimes online, but mostly from bookshops. I love literature. If you want to understand art, it's important to understand what is also happening in literature, in music, in science, in architecture.
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I believe that architecture is fundamentally a public space where people can gather and communicate, think about the history, think about the lives of human beings, or the world.
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Music, first of all, is completely about abstraction, which is exactly what architecture is not. In a way, it has been incredibly constructive to know what true abstraction is. So you don't fall into the trap of thinking that what you do is abstract.
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You don't have to spend much time in Shanghai before you start to get all existential about the meaning of authenticity. Did you know that Shanghai is building nine satellite towns, each designed to mimic the architecture and culture of a different country?
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The terrifying and edible beauty of Art Nouveau architecture.
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The fun never goes out, but it changes with the years, with winning and losing.
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The general public, formerly profoundly indifferent to everything to do with building, has been shaken out of its torpor; personal interest in architecture as something that concerns every one of us in our daily lives has been very widely aroused; and the broad line of its future development are already clearly discernible.
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If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.
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The development of the New Architecture encountered serious obstacles at a very early stage of its development. Conflicting theories and the dogmas enunciated in architects' personal manifestos all helped to confuse the main issue.
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As a child, my father's architecture seemed to me to be industrial in a way. It seemed harsh and kind of chilly; I didn't respond to it.
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In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it's modern architecture.
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The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish.
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The Internet has created an incredible democratization of the architecture industry.
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Architecture is invention.
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I am a failed architect, if I'm honest. I got a degree in art history and was about to get another degree, in architecture, but realized I would be terrible at building things because I've got really bad spatial awareness.
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I think the artistic side of architecture was natural to me. My mother was an artist and a poet.
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Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence.
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I cannot imagine myself fitting into the existing curriculum. I am too self-willed for that and have had my own very definite ideas for a long time, very different from the existing ways, as to how architecture is to be taught.
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I used to bring my sketchbook to gym class and doodle, because I am a very uncoordinated athlete.
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Octavia Butler often described herself as an outsider, but within science fiction, she was loved as an insider, someone who was a fan first and came to S.F. writing as an enthusiastic reader.
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I got to work with Robert DeNiro once and it was a strange experience. Gwyneth Paltrow and I were doing Great Expectations movie together and we were complaining about what a mediocre film experience it was. DeNiro showed up on set and all of a sudden the director got better, the director of photography got better - everybody got more interested and excited. DeNiro isn't waiting for other people to create the environment that he wants, he brings it along with him.
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Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me.
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I am exhausted by traditional memoir. I am exhausted by the architecture of the conventional novel.
