Our lives are given meaning by our actions-accomplishments made while we are "here" that extend beyond our own time.

I though about what death is, what a loss is. A sharp pain that lessens with time, but can never quite heal over. A scar. The idea occurred to me there on the site. Take a knife and cut open the earth, and with time the grass would heal it. As if you cut open the rock and polished it.

You really can't function as a celebrity. Entertainers are celebrities. I'm an architect. I'm an artist. I make things.

OK, it was black, it was below grade, I was female, Asian American, young, too young to have served. Yet I think none of the opposition in that sense hurt me.

The role of art in society differs for every artist.

Our parents decided not to teach us Chinese. It was an era when they felt we would be better off if we didn't have that complication.

I always give the analogy of the Earth at Night picture, of 7.3 billion of us, right? And everyone says, "Well, that's population." Well, if you took the entire world's population and you lived at the density of Manhattan proper - not a bad place to live - how much space do 7.3 billion people take up? The state of Colorado. At which point I end my lectures, because I want you to be thinking ... is this really a question of population, or is this a question of land use and resource consumption? And let's face it, the top 1.3 billion of us are doing all the damage. Sorry.