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

We don't see the banality, but we accept banality. We accept it as inevitable, and it's not.

If I knew where I was going, I wouldn't do it. When I can predict or plan it, I don't do it.

I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.

When I was a kid, my father didn't really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer; he didn't think I would amount to anything. My mother also.

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.

In the end, the character of a civilization is encased in its structures.