Literature Interviews
ACHIEVEMENT
- “I discovered early on that I’m the kind of person that experiments and makes mistakes but then it’s all worth it because once in a blue moon it hits home.”BjörkMusician
- “To fight this game alone is actually every day a struggle. Sometimes you are not in the best shape. The biggest thing is that you must find in it a personal happiness.”Ana RošChef
- “I’ve learned not to look at sales reports. I used to, but if I had listened to sales reports at the beginning, I would have given up on things that are some of our biggest successes now.”Rick OwensFashion designer
- “In the moment when you’re designing a building, it’s the subject. One year later, when you just go back and see it, it’s the object. It becomes part of the city. It starts to sit where it should be sitting.”David ChipperfieldArchitect
- “I want to be an authentic person. I start to feel that it’s a mission. I am not going to hold back on an opinion I have about something; I don’t know what the point of that would be.”Bret Easton EllisAuthor
- “There's going to be a moment where your work challenges you, where you’re at your limit… But if that deep love is really there, you're not going to abandon it. You are going to give your all to it!”Ari WegnerCinematographer
- “When you keep yourself open, you just might get to know yourself and know the good things about yourself. And that's why I always come back to songwriting. It's the way I kind of try and make sense of my life.”Jarvis CockerMusician
- “I’m surviving. I do everything I can to speak out and make sure that I keep my humanity.”Ai WeiweiArtist
- “It was eye opening and an education really, a masterclass working with Martin Scorsese on Killers of the Flower Moon. That talent! Of course, you are in the presence of a master, working with him.”Brendan FraserActor
- “The first song that I wrote was the way of discovering if I could write a song. And after that one I knew that I understood the form. Everything after that became more personal.”David ByrneMusician
- “I’m doing something that I love, and I consider that to be success. But if you think it’s gonna come fast or easy, then you probably are in for some rough times. You need to always be ready to throw things out and do it over again, and know that you love the process enough to be doing it repeatedly. Always be in love with the process and in love with your talent. And know that you’re going to keep doing it because it’s what you love doing.”Alan MenkenFilm composer
- “I feel quite free as an artist. I don't feel that I have to prove anything. It’s a liberating feeling. I can go in any directions, I can explore and embrace whatever I want.”Rolando VillazónOpera singer
- “You’ve got to actually write it. You’ve got to actually sit there and do it, it can’t just be about the experience. Lots of people have fantastic experiences in life, but don’t have any inclination to put pen to paper.”Irvine WelshAuthor
- “Most people make art and movies as a job and if a lot of people go to see it they make money and that is their sign of success. I am not making judgment here, but their goal is strictly business-oriented. I don't do this as a business.”Julian SchnabelArtist
- “I knew what felt instinctively right for me, and I pursued that throughout my entire career. It’s the way I live; it’s the way I work. Everything that I’ve done and everything that I have is an extension of my personal taste.”Calvin KleinFashion designer
- “I think it’s really important to not be afraid of failure and to push yourself to try things and jump in the cold water.”Juergen TellerPhotographer
- “Filmmaking is never anything less than a beautiful gift. I've been doing this forever, and as hard as it may be, it's never let me down. I have such a will to make these movies!”Abel FerraraFilm director
- “If I want to make a movie and I can at 62, I will. But I want to leave the ring triumphant. I want this guy, this guy you see right now, I want him to be the guy who makes the movies, not the autumn dude.”Quentin TarantinoFilm director
- “I’m 80 years old now, and little by little over your lifetime you begin to understand things that you didn’t understand earlier.”Francis Ford CoppolaFilm director
- “I do not consider architecture as art, nor do I consider architects to be artists. However, I do have a strong desire to improve the purity of my expression and put a strong message into my architecture so that I can call it art!”Tadao AndoArchitect
- “There’s only one of you in the world. No one else is like you and that's a superpower.”Noomi RapaceActor
- “We are consumed with existence, mortgages, jobs, cars, houses. It is nice to allow the imagination room to breathe again and see life as something that is spectacular and magic.”Colin FarrellActor
- “We have such a short time on this earth, and when you give that opportunity to somebody younger, and they pass it on to the next generation… That’s real success.”Dominique CrennChef
- “The game of basketball means everything. This is love. Definitely love. I had to practice and I had to make sacrifices, but basketball has given me so much.”LeBron JamesAthlete
- “I’ve learned that with time also comes pleasure: the pleasure of creating but also upholding the legacy that’s been passed down to me.”Anne-Sophie PicChef
- “What I am looking for in this world is a sense of not feeling alone, and that’s one of the greatest gifts you can give to another person. I hope that my work does that. I hope that when people leave the theater they feel less alone.”Brie LarsonActor
- “I thought for a long time as the business grew, “Is this something I want to do for the rest of my life?” And I knew it was not. When I left Calvin Klein, I had done almost everything I wanted to do in terms of creation of products. And re-doing was less fun.”Calvin KleinFashion designer
- “Art is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it.”Julian SchnabelArtist
- “I think a big part of writing comes out of an attempt to understand yourself. I just always felt whole when I was writing. I felt this kind of beautiful privacy that I never felt in any other way.”Sheila HetiAuthor
- “It’s everything you need, but nothing extra. It’s what's essential. It’s a minimum state which you achieve when you can't add or subtract… It’s sort of this perfect state, that’s what I'm looking for.”John PawsonArchitect
- “I think for me in my life, the most useful thing that I aspire to be is just being as self-aware and as honest with myself as possible. I think if you’re doing that then probably everything else will follow.”Daniel RadcliffeActor
- “After winning an Oscar, there’s an alertness to what you’re thinking or doing or saying. I feel like there’s an aliveness to the experience that wasn’t as attuned previously.”Chiwetel EjioforActor
- “It's important for a novelist to use the imagination like a musician, a composer or a painter would, in a kind of non-logical way. I think it’s very important for me to not just become a kind of intellectual writer.”Kazuo IshiguroAuthor
- “I don’t want to continue to do what I did when I was 20. I would like to continue to develop myself .”Anton CorbijnPhotographer
- “If I pass away one day, I am happy because I tried to do my best. My sport allowed me to do so much.”PeléAthlete
- “Art is about finding creativity in the normal gutter next to you. To see the potential in something where there is no potential in terms of how society sees it is often where art or creativity is a great tool. It’s about making the impossible possible.”Olafur EliassonArtist
- “You better make every moment count. Live your life now; start in the morning. You mustn’t sit around waiting to die.”Michael CaineActor
- “It’s the rollercoaster ride of doing something creative: when it goes well and you enjoy the process then it’s a high and you just want to keep on doing it.”Christian BaleActor
- “I believe anyway that the prime-time for every work of art exists in the time in which it was done. After that it’s transformation, continuous transformation.”ChristoArtist
- “My goal when I’m in front of an audience is to perform the piece and fill it with meaning. On stage, I concentrate on rationality and empathy, since the singer must feel a certain amount of emotion, but not too much.”Andrea BocelliOpera singer
Celebrating Architecture
- Arine Aprahamianread interview
- Alessandra Rampazzo and Marcello Galiottoread interview
- Kengo Kumaread interview
- Michael Maltzanread interview
- Tom Kundigread interview
- Jeanne Gangread interview
- Lina Ghotmehread interview
- John Pawsonread interview
- Ini Archibongread interview
- Dimore Studioread interview
- Sumayya Vallyread interview
- Tadao Andoread interview
- Francine Houbenread interview
- Studio KOread interview
- Bjarke Ingelsread interview
- José Selgas and Lucía Canoread interview
- Francis Kéréread interview
- Marion Weiss and Michael Manfrediread interview
- Ole Scheerenread interview
- Joshua Ramusread interview
- Antoine Predockread interview
- Thom Mayneread interview
- César Pelliread interview
- Ma Yansongread interview
- Ben van Berkelread interview
- Winy Maasread interview
- Daniel Libeskindread interview
- David Chipperfieldread interview