The depth of your mythology is the extent of your effectiveness.
But to me, to be original is to be yourself.
I was much more interested in making things than in designing them.
One of the great things about design is that it's truly international. No one in the design industry would say, "This country is mine," or "I will make it look this way because it's for an American market and that way for a Chinese market. " If you look at all of the Apple products, they are the same everywhere. . . I mean, I can't deny that I love traveling. It's a very healthy thing to be able to appreciate other cultures - or at least witness them firsthand. And all of that goes into helping someone be a good designer, because it's an international business.
I'm so immersed in my little world that I don't often sit back and pay attention to what's going on around me. It truly stuns me when people recognize me. Obviously, I'm not a film star, but even at a design exhibition or art exhibition, if someone comes up to me, I'm sort of taken aback. I don't think of myself like that. But if I can have an effect on young designers, that's great - particularly young designers coming from Australia. Europeans grew up with design. The rest of us lived on tidbits of information.
I have to confess that I'm in a constant state of evolution in terms of the way I feel about it. When I was doing early pieces, I wasn't exactly in love with the idea of building the stuff. I could do it because I had the skills, but I really did it because I couldn't find anyone else to build it for me.
Doing anything in Japan as a sort of architecture - related project is just fantastic because they do everything so perfectly and so quickly. It's unlike anywhere else in the world.
My assignment is what every writer's assignment is: tell the truth of his own time.
Generally speaking, I went through that. I came to a place where I realised what true value was. It wasn't money. Money is a means to achieving an end, but it's not the end.
Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.
Sometimes, if you wear suits for too long, it changes your ideology.