All my work is much more peaceful than I am.

I went through withdrawal when I got out of graduate school. It's what you learn, what you think. That's all that counts.

Sometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field.

When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business.

The process I go through in the art and the architecture, I actually want it to be almost childlike. Sometimes I think it's magical.

I left science, then I went into art, but I approach things very analytically. I choose to pursue both art and architecture as completely separate fields rather than merging them.

I probably have fundamentally antisocial tendencies. I never took one extracurricular activity. I just failed utterly at that level. Part of me still rebels against that.