Winnipeg, Canada

Over the past four decades, I have collected thousands of quotations that I find engaging, inspiring, or stimulating—mostly with regard to design, but also with reference to life in general. (Anyone who has sat through my lectures knows that I draw liberally from what others have said before). I’m especially enamored with the effective use of metaphor, irony, or other rhetorical devices that drive a message home. Famous last words are often particularly profound…

God will pardon me, that’s his line of work.
—poet Heinrich Heine, d. 1856

I’ve had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that’s the record…
—poet Dylan Thomas, d. 1953

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
—writer Oscar Wilde, d. 1900

The splash page of our recently updated Circle website features a dozen or so quotations re: design and design thinking—this has drawn attention from quite a number of design bloggers of late, such as swissmiss.