Lawrence Halprin American Architect Quotations

Of all the Jedis I saw in the film, Yoda's the only one I like.

And you finally get to a consensus, where you get a sense of what really ought to be done, and then they give it to me and then I draw it. I mean draw it in the sense, the philosophical sense.

And I think one of the tasks that I always feel is how to get that vision out of them. Not exactly what they want, but what they want to accomplish for themselves or their community or their family.

Because over and over again, the times that I've done really good things is because I've had a wonderful client of some kind, and a lot of it depended on me to induce them to be creative.

Then I sit down, work at it, because now I have a convincing feeling about what that place wants to be, you see? And it's not just me. Me and my talent comes in taking that consensus and then making something wonderful out of it - a work of art.

Because one of the benefits of getting older, I guess-there are very few benefits, really - most of them are a pain in the butt. People depend on me more; they believe in me more, they think I'm good.

One is, that they will feel about you that you're going to make something wonderful for them. And they help you by expressing themselves. Not telling you how to do it, but encouraging you and accepting your vision and working with you on that kind of a level.

Because the quality of living with nature and allowing it to manifest itself is different than the quality of living in a city, especially a dense city.

One of the things I thought a lot about was how can we get the views, for instance, the main plaza, you look up to Telegraph Hill from there and therefore it would be a disaster to close that view off.

I suppose and I hope that the young guys who are out there losing their lives at least feel the same way I did. I shouldn't think about this very much because I'm almost weeping when I think about it.