I was brought up to reuse things.

So much of what makes a room great is how you enter and circulate through it, how it addresses the body.

When you have rules to abide by, does that curtail you as a designer, or set you free? People think of classical architecture visually, but I think the brilliant part of it is actually spatial.

All clients think that they are architects.

Tension is an interesting quality - and architecture must have it. There should be elements of the inexplicable, the mysterious, and the poetic in something that is perfectly rational.

The secret of good architecture is having more than meets the eye.

I make spaces that are calm rather than confrontational. I seek a certain kind of logic that allows you to move in space and perceive it as beautiful and rational. Clarity is a worthwhile quality.

One of the things I've always loved about New York is there is so much precedent for ornament on industrial buildings.

What I do isn't radical. It's just distinct in small ways.

When everything is perfectly orderly and understandable, there has to be one thing that puts everything into question.

I'm inspired by looking at art, by looking at precedent. Looking is what you have to do if you want to make things, so you develop a critical eye.

Why is it… that temptations of the world seem to be stronger than romance? Is it because of biological imperative of reproduction

But my patience isn't limitless... unlike my authority.

The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.

Hard to grasp democracy without free will.

Jane Austin was a complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete and rather insensible (not senseless) woman. If this is heresy, I cannot help it.

You can't have three defenders moving up and one going back. The decisions a team makes are important. As a whole.

I get extra time to take the test because of my ADD. Everybody's brains works differently and I just need longer for things to register.

The best cure for sadness is doing something.

Children are the keys of Paradise. They alone are good and wise, because their thoughts, their very lives are prayer.

How can you ever hope to know the Beloved Without becoming in every cell the Lover?