Scientific naturalism is a story that reduces reality to physical particles and impersonal laws, [and] portrays life as a meaningless competition among organisms that exist only to survive and reproduce.

How does an artist know when the line that he just painted is good or not good? That's the catch. De Kooning was the greatest of my contemporaries in art, and he knew when he'd done a good line. When he didn't, he threw it away. I wish I'd thrown away some of mine.

Architects are pretty much high-class whores. We can turn down projects the way they can turn down some clients, but we've both got to say yes to someone if we want to stay in business.

When a building is as good as that one, f#*@ the art.

In my own work, I'd say I'm a classicist, but I look everywhere for my solutions. I don't study the toilet-living habits of my clients, although that's a popular approach. First, I think of every building in history that has been similar in purpose. Then I think of the functional program - that's a major part of the study.

I'm a chameleon, so changeable. I see myself as a gadfly and a questioner.

Ninety-eight percent are boxes, which tells me that a lot of people are in denial. We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that. Most of what's around us is banal. We live with it. We accept it as inevitable. People say, "This is the world the way it is, and don't bother me." Then when somebody does something different, real architecture, the push-back is amazing. People resist it. At first it's new and scary.