“I fought violently for the autonomy of architecture. It's a very passi...” — Thom Mayne Quote

“I fought violently for the autonomy of architecture. It's a very passive, weak profession where people deliver a service. You want a blue door, you get a blue door. You want it to look neo-Spanish, you get neo-Spanish. Architecture with any authenticity represents resistance. Resistance is a good thing.”

“Look around at day-to-day life for ideas, and it finds its way into your work.”

“The age of recalcitrance is over. The best solution is no longer just to regurgitate a 19th-century design.”

“I've always liked traveling around Europe and seeing the architecture. The buildings in capital cities have been there for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Some look better than the new ones.”

“The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.”

“Instead of using the machine as a metaphor for architecture, as Le Corbusier did, I use the human body. I want the public to know that it's them I'm designing for.”