I think you've got to accept that certain things are in process that you can't change, that you can't overwhelm. The chaos of our cities, the randomness of our lives, the unpredictability of where you're going to be in ten years from now - all of those things are weighing on us, and yet there is a certain glimmer of control. If you act a certain way, and talk a certain way, you're going to draw certain forces to you.

Everything - design and technology and materials - has changed since the World Trade Center was built. A lot of it has to do with computers, which allow us to be far more efficient as well as structurally sound.

In Tokyo, London or Los Angeles people go into McDonald's and the restaurants are identical and people are comfortable. It's unthreatening.

Your best work is your expression of yourself.

People say, "This is the world the way it is, and don't bother me." Then when somebody does something different, real architecture, the push-back is amazing. People resist it. At first it's new and scary.

Everybody's an artist. Unfortunately we don't treat them as such.

The fact is I'm an opportunist. I'll take materials around me, materials on my table, and work with them as I'm searching for an idea that works.