It is not an individual act, architecture. You have to consider your client. Only out of that can you produce great architecture. You cannot work in the abstract

Success is a collection of problems solved.

For Kips Bay, I had a wonderful client, William Zeckendorf, who was willing to gamble with me on using concrete and not brick for a high-rise apartment building. That was very innovative at the time.

Life is architecture and architecture is the mirror of life.

I've been active all my life. In 1990 I retired from my firm, I.M. Pei & Partners, and for two years I didn't do much. Then I started to get kind of antsy, so I decided, I'm going to do some more work. And I chose to do work outside the U.S. because I've spent 45 years here and I wanted to learn more about what's happening in the rest of the world.

I want to bring out the best in a community and contribute something of permanent value.

Let's do it right. This is for the ages.