I think people should try to teach young children that these qualities - stubbornness and a capacity to listen - might look like they are opposites, but they are not.
In some way, people believe that if you are permeable, if you are a good listener, you don't have the quality of somebody with a firm attitude. This is what, fundamentally, I got from my mother.
Architecture is a very dangerous job. If a writer makes a bad book, eh, people don't read it. But if you make bad architecture, you impose ugliness on a place for a hundred years.
Architecture is an imposed art in some ways, imposed upon the public, so people must be sure about what you're doing. You have to be sure about what you're doing.