William A. Dembski Quotes

When I work on sculpture, I don't have to worry about function. When I work on a piece of architecture, I must think about function all the time.

The creative act is like writing a letter. A letter is a project; you don't sit down to write a letter unless you know what you want to say and to whom you want to say it.

Usually, as designers, you try to create meaning.

I don't build because I am an architect. I can make true architecture because I do not build.

Architecture doesn't come from theory. You don't think your way through a building.

I try to look at design from a more conceptual standpoint.

The level of detail and craft is something that's inscribed within the original design concept. And so when I begin to draw, I know what kind of detailing I want the building to have.

A designer is someone who constructs while he thinks, someone for whom planning and making go together.

I would just sketch everything that was being made for the collections.

Something like 'Abstract' can really give people access to the behind-the-scenes of how our physical surroundings take shape.

Just taking a piece of dirt and envisioning the building you'd like to put on it - it's an amazing process.

All successful people have a goal. No one can get anywhere unless he knows where he wants to go and what he wants to be or do.

Design is the patterning and planning of any act toward a desired, foreseeable end... any attempt to separate design, to make it a thing-by-itself works, counter to the fact that design is the primary underlying matrix of life.

I think the responsibility of running a huge business, which happens if you become a successful designer, probably makes you more careful.

Design implies a sense of mapping something out and then you follow the plan.

When any great design thou dost intend, Think on the means, the manner, and the end.

The idea for a building or an object can come up just as quick, but there is a big difference in process.

Design is, literally, purposeful planning. Graphic Design, then, is the form those plans will take.

I've made clothes my whole life, but I was just naive about the fashion world. But I think it's successful because I've been really involved. Picking the samples, inspirations, color palette.

Think of the design process as involving first the generation of alternatives and then the testing of these alternatives against a whole array of requirements and restraints.

I've always loved opera; it never occurred to me that I would write a proper libretto. One of my closest friends is a composer, Paul Moravec, and a few years ago, Paul and I were at lunch, and I said to him, "you really have to write an opera." So, he says very casually to me, "I'll do it if you write the libretto." Well, little did I know that the within a couple of years we would end up getting a commission from the Santa Fe Opera to write an opera together, "The Letter," which turned out to be the most successful commissioned opera in the history of the Santa Fe Opera.

I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book.

I may very well move in. I just don't know. I can't sit here and know what pictures I'm going to take.

When I do music I don't do it with a purpose in mind. I just feel like it's a little bit contrived if you try to do something like that. It's got to come organically.

In terms of how the music developed, it was my normal process, which I would say is really a hybrid process of sketching on bits of paper, playing the piano, playing synthesisers, using the computer, staring out of the window, finding things I'd forgotten about, happy accidents, failed plans, best intentions, equipment failures. It is a multidimensional process incorporating a lot of planning and intention and a lot of randomness. Ultimately I just follow the material where it wants to go a lot of the time.