Each building has to be beautiful, but cheap and fast, but it lasts forever. That is already an incredible battery of seemingly contradictory demands. So yes, I'm definitely perhaps contradictory person, but I operate in very contradictory times.
Rem Koolhaas
Related Living with contradiction may be nothing new to humans, but acknowledging it, and accepting it are. ... SHELLEN LUBIN It's totally contradictory, but so is Las Vegas. We've always had this contradictory set of images a... MICHAEL GREEN Opposites are not contradictory but complementary. NIELS BOHR It's about how to bring together the seemingly contradictory aspects of the memorial, which is a... DANIEL LIBESKIND I was very shy and reserved, so it was a bit contradictory to get into politics. NAJAT VALLAUD-BELKACEM Evangelicals always assume that humor and faith are contradictory. It's OK to smile, to be nice,... MIKE YACONELLI The sea has this contradictory quality, that the more you see of it, the more it overwhelms the eye ... ALICE OSWALD I am a contradictory mess but I see it as my prerogative to change my mood like the weather. SHIRLEY MANSON The condition of sleep is profoundly contradictory. It is a precious good... but it is a good like n... EMILY MARTIN By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, tha... AMOR TOWLES I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so co... ANDRé BRETON I like characters who are contradictory. DAVID BERGEN The idea of it is that these kids are all pacifists but have this obsession with guns, so it's a bit... JAMIE BELL Emotion is messy, contradictory... and true. NIGELLA LAWSON Iran is a very complicated player, an influential player seeking regional pre- eminence. Iraq is ver... ZALMAY KHALILZAD I'm 100 percent convinced that Pablo Escobar was a human being. And he was a very interesting on... WAGNER MOURA People who inspire such contradictory emotions must be worthwhile, I reasoned. SARA SHERIDAN I know that you should eat a lot of the Indian spice turmeric, as it fights cancer. Also that you sh... A.J. JACOBS The views expressed by Me are in no way endorsed by CBS any of its allied companies or in fact Me. CRAIG FERGUSON [Perhaps his response had something to do with Denton's assessment of Latham, as given on Triple M l... ANDREW DENTON Mankind makes living contradictory. ANONYMOUS Perhaps I abandoned criticism because I am full of contradictions, and when you write an essay, you ... EUGENE IONESCO I realize I am contradictory: I have an independent filmmaker's sensibility and a Hollywood dire... DOUG LIMAN I believe that an art exhibition can be engaging, fun and deeply intellectually satisfying and serio... JEFFREY DEITCH No one could have imagined a place like Havana, Cuba. It is absurdly contradictory, always arguing w... ED KIRWAN Every novelist has a different purpose - and often several purposes which might even be contradictor... IRWIN SHAW Contradictory as it seems, malnutrition is a key contributor to obesity. MADELEINE M. KUNIN I have found human nature a bit contradictory in my living of it. Human life is incredibly strange. PAT CONROY Revolution is not the uprising against preexisting order, but the setting up of a new order contradi... JOSE ORTEGA Y GASSET In art, and maybe just in general, the idea is to be able to be really comfortable with contradictor... GEORGE SAUNDERS To be a preacher requires two apparently contradictory qualities: confidence and humility. TIMOTHY RADCLIFFE Beautiful, ugly, impressive, disgusting, meaningless, grim, contradictory etc… It makes no differe... ASGER JORN You can't be that or that or that... but you can try to behave as that... So, what next!?... DEYTH BANGER It is contradictory, why a need for hope if you trust in fear? MOKGEHLE WILLIAM WISBAR To the best of my recollection, there is nothing inconsistent or contradictory in that testimony and... BOB GRAHAM There's nothing more ironic or contradictory than life itself. ROBERT DE NIRO Because you might just get there and turn around and want to leave again. I'm not going to ping-pong... BUT APRIL I want to make sure it is out of there for good. Whatever it is, there is a shark floating in there ... BUT BURNETT Something wasn't right. It's pretty frustrating. I feel about two inches tall. BUT BURNETT Well? I mean, I know fatherhood isn't your strong suit, but I thought maybe you'd evolved a little s... BUT APRIL Last time I heard, she was still pregnant, and you were still in the running for daddy. BUT APRIL Petty deviance is encouraged JKRAK It is not possible to live in this age if you don't have a sense of many contradictory forces. REM KOOLHAAS Charlie Crist is once again taking multiple and contradictory positions on an issue important to Rep... ALBERT MARTINEZ The government's main witnesses in regard to the Santoro homicide will each testify to a materially ... BARRY LEVIN When your words and actions are contradictory your sincerity is untrustworthy. PETER SAYSOMPHANE FAKE Mask... - That's when we are honest... or probably not... More likely contradictory!... DEYTH BANGER God has levels of willing and delighting. He wills and delights in things in different ways so that ... JOHN PIPER I've had the thought that a person's 'artistic vision' is really just the cumulative... GEORGE SAUNDERS I am going to be contradictory to myself many times for the simple reason that I am trying to bring ... RAJNEESH The fact that she is now providing contradictory and delayed information has only served to reinforc... GARETH MORGAN Nothing in all the world is so nonsensical and contradictory, save mortals, that is, who live in the... ANNE RICE You can't get a sustainable fish from an over-harvested stock, it's contradictory. REED MCFARLAND I'm not questioning the monotheistic god. I think there's absolutely no evidence for the exi... BARBARA EHRENREICH The idea is to believe me... but as far as I see the world... to believe is a sin... to trust me one... DEYTH BANGER The goal of the revolution is to achieve the people's rights, but during the course of the revol... SUN YAT-SEN All people are paradoxical. No one is easily reducible, so I like characters who have contradictory ... EDWARD NORTON There's nothing more ironic or contradictory than life itself. ROBERT DE NIRO In a typically contradictory move, globalisation, while promoting economic integration among elites,... PANKAJ MISHRA Being a 911 operator means balancing seemingly contradictory skills. On one hand, operators have to ... GARY WOLF It was in a lot of ways a very experimental project, because the narrative is nonlinear and in some ... GREG HARRISON The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness,... ANDREW CARNEGIE That's what's happening... zombies are out... but in hour movie... not in series. DEYTH BANGER Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, a... GEORGE ORWELL To write poetry and to commit suicide, apparently so contradictory, had really been the same, attemp... JOHN FOWLES As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy ... CHARLES BAUDELAIRE A mere inference or theory must give way to a truth revealed; but a scientific truth must be maintai... DAVID BREWSTER The point is that profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by side, if they are constructed f... NEIL POSTMAN Art has a way of confronting us, of reminding us, of engaging us, in what it means to be human, and ... JUNOT DIAZ Poststructuralism. . . . is a form of literary criticism that uses elaborate wordplay to prove its c... NAOMI WOLF Double-thought: as you believe things that should be self-contradictory. This is generally the resul... JAMES DYE His face, like everything she knew about him, was purely contradictory. That cherubic mouth with tho... PRISCILLA GLENN Public opinion has been remarkably stable for 30 years and at one and the same time deeply contradic... KARLYN BOWMAN an opportunity to explore our country's uniquely conflicted and contradictory history of intimacy an... FRED NEWMAN But I can please God CRAIG GROESCHEL Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory, Pausing, gazing, bending, and s... NICHOLAS SPARKS A grand coalition would be perceived negatively by the markets. It would be unlikely to push through... JOERG KRAEMER I'm very expressive, but I'm also a very private person. It is so hard to be private in the ... SHIRLEY EATON Reality is very, very contradictory, and so I try to write just perfecting what I see, what I read, ... EDUARDO GALEANO It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence coul... TERRY PRATCHETT Why do we pigeonhole and label an artist? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradicto... LUKAS FOSS Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain. CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ We may claim to believe in God, but we don't want to believe so much that it makes us different. CRAIG GROESCHEL Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and a... GEORGE ORWELL "Doublethink" means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and... GEORGE ORWELL At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an op... CARL SAGAN The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an a... ANDREW CARNEGIE I was vaguely aware that same of those around me thought that this pairing of explorations was contr... FRANCIS S. COLLINS It's a beautiful drive across the United States. It's so interesting. I'm a proud Canadi... DAVID SUTCLIFFE I encountered a lot of people who were very distant and uncommunicative and misleading and self-cont... DAVID NEWMAN For my own part, my belief in the perfection of the Deity will not permit me to believe that a book ... THOMAS PAINE Many life-affirming questions lead to an endless spool of disconcerting propositions and contradicto... KILROY J. OLDSTER KORAN, n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration,... AMBROSE BIERCE I thought much of what he said fit into the pattern of our outline. I don't think I heard anything c... DAN HOLSENBECK Why bother with a cunning plan when a simple one will do? TERRY PRATCHETT You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innoc... EDWIN MEESE In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer - proof again of the contradictory hum... MARKUS ZUSAK So you're trying to make her happy despite the fact that the reason she's unhappy in the first place... CASSANDRA CLARE You may find many contradictory statements and philosophies within my writings. However, to this I w... BRYANT H. MCGILL We just don't know very much about Jesus. All we know are four contradictory texts that purport to t... JOSEPH CAMPBELL
More Rem Koolhaas
What is now called 'green architecture' is an opportunistic caricature of a much deeper cons... REM KOOLHAAS The acceptance of certain realities doesn't preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthrou... REM KOOLHAAS When air conditioning, escalators, and advertising appeared, shopping expanded its scale, but also l... REM KOOLHAAS People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and ecstatic in anything. More an... REM KOOLHAAS The great problem of the concert hall is that the shoebox is the ideal shape for acoustics but that ... REM KOOLHAAS Any architectural project we do takes at least four or five years, so increasingly there is a discre... REM KOOLHAAS That has been my entire life story, running against the current and running with the current. Someti... REM KOOLHAAS Miami Beach is a completely interesting hybrid because it is, on the one hand, a resort and, on the ... REM KOOLHAAS The luxury of our position now is that we can almost assemble any team to address any issue. REM KOOLHAAS The areas of consensus shift unbelievably fast; the bubbles of certainty are constantly exploding. REM KOOLHAAS Architects work in two ways. One is to respond precisely to a client's needs or demands. Another... REM KOOLHAAS As an architect, I always have mixed feelings. On the one hand, your fingers are itching. As a human... REM KOOLHAAS When shopping was still connected to the street it was also an intensification and articulation of t... REM KOOLHAAS Designs are increasingly winning competitions because they are literally green, and because somewher... REM KOOLHAAS Asia is still dominated by skyscrapers. I hope that, in European cities, it will become a declining ... REM KOOLHAAS One of our theories is that one can offset this excessive compulsion toward the spectacular with a r... REM KOOLHAAS Infrastructure is much more important than architecture. REM KOOLHAAS Architecture has died and been replaced by air conditioning. REM KOOLHAAS A building has at least two lives - the one imagined by its maker and the life it lives afterward - ... REM KOOLHAAS I am incredibly bad at predicting the future; I am only smart enough to observe the present and list... REM KOOLHAAS We felt it was very important for an entity like CCTV to make its presence felt... To generate a spa... REM KOOLHAAS The thing is that I have a really intense, almost compulsive need to record. But it doesn't end ... REM KOOLHAAS Not many architects have the luxury to reject significant things. REM KOOLHAAS It is not possible to live in this age if you don't have a sense of many contradictory forces. REM KOOLHAAS Influence is a very unpleasant subject and I deal with it in a maybe irresponsible way, which is to ... REM KOOLHAAS I'd say that my profession ends where architectural thinking ends - architectural thinking in te... REM KOOLHAAS Escape from the architecture ghetto is one of the major drivers and has been from the very beginning... REM KOOLHAAS Architecture is a rare collective profession: it's always exercised by groups. There is an essen... REM KOOLHAAS We live in an almost perfect stillness and work with incredible urgency. REM KOOLHAAS It's a weird city because the uglier the weather, the more beautiful the city. And the uglier th... REM KOOLHAAS We say we want to create beauty, identity, quality, singularity. And yet, maybe in truth these citie... REM KOOLHAAS It was really frightening. I'd never even heard of such a thing. I had no mobility. There were some ... REM MURRAY I wasn't sure I'd ever play a game again. REM MURRAY