Zaha Hadid

I miss aspects of being in the Arab world - the language - and there is a tranquility in these cities with great rivers. Whether it's Cairo or Baghdad, you sit there and you think, 'This river has flown here for thousands of years.' There are magical moments in these places.

Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?

What's nice about concrete is that it looks unfinished.

As a woman, you're not accessible to every world.

I've always thought that design can have equal importance to the idea of internal architecture. Professionally, things can be very dogmatic - you do the architecture, someone else does the interiors, someone else does the furniture, the fabric, etc. But I think design is all-encompassing.

People say I design architectural icons. If I design a building and it becomes an icon, that's ok.

Architecture is how the person places herself in the space. Fashion is about how you place the object on the person.

I will never give myself the luxury of thinking, 'I've made it.'

I don't think that architecture is only about shelter, is only about a very simple enclosure. It should be able to excite you, to calm you, to make you think.

It's very important that historic cities are allowed to reinvent their future.

I will always have two regrets. I don't have a presence in London, and I would have liked to have done more work in the Middle East.

There are so many great galleries and museums in London, but they can be very crowded during the day.

I love driving around east London - it's always full of surprises. Actually, I don't drive myself - I like to be driven.

If you think about making a city that is much more porous, many accessible spaces, that is a political position, because you don't fortify, you open it up so that many people can use it.

Architecture is particularly difficult for women; there's no reason for it to be. I don't want to blame men or society, but I think it was for a long time, the clients were men, the building industry is all male.

I really love Miami, but I don't think the architecture matches the city. It's a bit too commercial.

I don't particularly like showing furniture on pedestals, but for whatever reasons you always have to in museums.

When I first came to Guangzhou in 1981, it seemed such a hard and dour place with everyone in Chairman Mao uniforms.

If I wanted to do clothes or if I wanted to make a building or design a choreography, you are able to do that - they are all under a similar kind of design umbrella.

The funkiest housing in Holland is for low-income, and I think that's very nice.

Obviously for some people there is a big connection between music and the way you can create a space.

All the privileged can travel, see different worlds; not everyone can. I think it is important for people to have an interesting locale nearby.

I don't think that everybody in the planet should have a child. I've never had the desire I should have a kid.

I was always unusual-looking; I wouldn't say beautiful.

I always thought I was powerful, since I was a kid.

As a woman, I'm expected to want everything to be nice and to be nice myself. A very English thing. I don't design nice buildings - I don't like them. I like architecture to have some raw, vital, earthy quality.

In Iraq, many of my female friends were architects and professionals with a lot of power during the 1980s while all the men were at war in Iran.

I really believe in the idea of the future.