My dad was dean of fine arts at the university. I was casting bronzes in the school foundry. I was using the university as a playground.

You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art.

It terrified me to have an idea that was solely mine to be no longer a part of my mind, but totally public.

I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character.

I cannot force a design; I do not see this process as being under my conscious control.

Even though I build buildings and I pursue my architecture, I pursue it as an artist. I deliberately keep a tiny studio. I don't want to be an architectural firm. I want to remain an artist.

When I was very little, we would get letters from China, in Chinese, and they' be censored. We were a very insular little family.