Each project, I suffer like I'm starting over again in life. There's a lot of healthy insecurity that fuels this stuff.

A new idea is obsolete in seconds, right? I just said it and now it's obsolete.

Computers allow architects to remain parental instead of being marginalized by the contractors and managers.

I hate the word starchitect. Stuff like that comes from mean-spirited, untalented journalists. It's demeaning.

I can't just decide myself what's being built. Someone decides what they want, then I work for them.

I found myself starting architecture with a deep social, Jewish, liberal conscience, and the belief that architecture is for the people. It was a do-gooder base; I was born and raised that way. I was for blacks, whites, Italians, Poles, whatever.

A well-designed home has to be very comfortable. I can't stand the aesthetes, the minimal thing. I can't live that way. My home has to be filled with stuff - mostly paintings, sculpture, my fish lamps, cardboard furniture, lots of books.