I think it is important to be present in the places where you are working. It is not only about doing a project, but following the project through its construction.

I have tried to get close to the frontier between architecture and sculpture and to understand architecture as an art.

There was a wish to get something exceptional, ... I also wanted to deliver something technically unique.

The most touching thing that anyone can say to me is that I have done something beautiful for the community.

I am always searching for more light and space.

You start a project as a young person and then at the end you are another person. You are ready to go for your pension.

The architect is not only the director, but he is the composer. And, as a composer, the architect brings a sense of creativity to each building.

It's very atmospheric. It's not a building that is a severe statement in the skyline. We need the height; otherwise, the building almost disappears because it is so slender.

As a building is resistant to forces acting upon it, a person must be equally tenacious in life.

The architect needs to learn to see, and to open his eyes because there is always a lesson to learn from the streets.

The way is not always easy, but in order to bring a work through to completion, you will need a strong character, a broad foundation of knowledge and an enormous force of persuasion.

Don’t overact the story of your name. Overact the story of your work.

There's still a thousand places I haven't gone to die.

A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.

I didn't know what Guess jeans were. I just shopped at Wal-Mart and Kmart and stuff like that.

I grew up without a television. It meant that I read lots of books and entertained myself.

Philly is a state of mind I’m always in. The city is truly a character in its own right, and it’s served me well because the people I was exposed to gave me that cultural rootedness.

I think perhaps of all the things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious.

If you haven't already told your kids 'don't fellate the president' then you're probably a bad parent.

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.