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.

It was a requirement by the veterans to list the 57,000 names. We're reaching a time that we'll acknowledge the individual in a war on a national level.

I like to think of my work as creating a private conversation with each person, no matter how public each work is and no matter how many people are present

I'm not in a hurry to do a lot of projects. I am very resolved in each project I take on.

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

Architecture is like a mythical fantastic. It has to be experienced. It can't be described. We can draw it up and we can make models of it, but it can only be experienced as a complete whole.

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.