And it is very moving because one has to see the site not as just another site of development but it is a very special site. It is a site that souls and hearts of all Americans.

It's about how to bring together the seemingly contradictory aspects of the memorial, which is about a tragedy and how it changed the world, but also about creating a vital and beautiful city of the 21st century.

I think there is a new awareness in this 21st century that design is as important to where and how we live as it is for museums, concert halls and civic buildings.

We all came to see that site. We all walked around it. It is already sacred.

I studied architecture in New York. So, really I was very moved, like everyone else, to try to contribute something that has that resonance and profundity of it means to all of us.

It's a project that touched me as an immigrant and as a New Yorker.

And then, build a bustling wonderful city of the 21st century, with a restoration of a spectacular skyline, which Manhattan, of course, needs. So, that is really the design as a whole.

I'm not Candide, nor Dr Pangloss, but we know that faith moves mountains.

I don't get to sleep when I'm in New York. Really. I'm living on adrenaline.

Well, I didn't want to have the reminder sort of in the sky, so that people would forever look at it. I wanted to have - really to create a city from the bottom up. From that foundation, which held, from the democratic power of what the site really is.

And of course I like Berlin a lot. It's such an interesting city.

There are more people living in Lower Manhattan now than before the terrorist attacks. That's faith for you. There's such a strong spirit here.

And it is very moving because one has to see the site not as just another site of development but it is a very special site. It is a site that souls and hearts of all Americans.

It's a fantastic responsibility and a wonderful moment.

Larry wanted us to reposition the tower. We wouldn't, and won't. He's been holding back our fees. We want to get paid. And that's it. It'll get solved and we'll carry on with planning Ground Zero.

And you have to remember that I came to America as an immigrant. You know, on a ship, through the Statue of Liberty. And I saw that skyline, not just as a representation of steel and concrete and glass, but as really the substance of the American Dream.

We will work with everybody for the good of New York.

Only through acknowledgment of the erasure and void of Jewish life can the history of Berlin and Europe have a human future.

The Spiral Gallery may happen, too. It is not dependent on government funding.

To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history but to articulate it.

Cities are the greatest creations of humanity.

Winning a competition in architecture is a ticket to oblivion. It's just an idea. Ninety-nine per cent never get built.

When you're a kid with artistic yearnings brought up in the Bronx, you don't get fed up too easily.

Life it is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious.

There will be a competition for the memorial. And then it can be developed with trees, with planting. It can become a very beautiful place protected from the streets, because it is below. And it can be something very moving and very private.

Well, I think one doesn't really have to invent this memorial space, because it is already there. And it is speaking with a voice and, you know, 4 million of us came to see the site.

The foreign press seems obsessed with the Freedom Tower, as if it was the only thing going on here. In fact, we're trying to keep a huge juggling act in balance, with the tower as just one of the many balls in play.

Architecture is not based on concrete and steel, and the elements of the soil. It's based on wonder.

We live in a time of renaissance ... cities are coming back to life, after a long neglect.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Americans seem sometimes to believe that if you are a thinker you must be a frowning bore, because thinking is so damn serious.

Americans are big boys. You can talk them into almost anything. Just sit with them for half an hour over a bottle of whiskey and be a nice guy.

Alabama citizens, like the vast majority of Americans, respect and value the meaning of decency, and appreciate public institutions that reflect the common values of our society.

People are stunned to hear that one company has data files on 185 million Americans.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

I understand about this idea of terror and what it means to Americans and this idea that we can't just walk around free like we did; life has changed.

I mean, the reality is unemployment today - over 14 million Americans are unemployed. That's exactly what it was a year ago. I mean, this - the American people know we can't borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

There seems to be this sense among even well-meaning Americans that Africa is this black hole of murder and mutilation that can never be fixed, no matter what aid is brought in.

Currently, not only are Americans taxed on what they earn, but those assets are taxed again when they are passed on to a loved one.

In 2001, Congress passed much needed tax relief to allow Americans to keep more of their hard earned money and spend it as they see fit - rather than how the federal government sees fit.

Most Americans approach the problems of the Middle East with a pro-Israeli bias - and rightly so.

Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look - historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.

In the United States, there one feels free... Except from the Americans - but every pearl has its oyster.

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

I know that we're being inexorably taken over by the Americans. Without a doubt. I don't mean invaded or anything like that, just taken over. By degrees.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

The poorest residents of the gulf coast were most affected by the devastating hurricanes, and the poorest Americans have shouldered a disproportionate share of the burden in Iraq.

The way Americans understand and treat other peoples almost guarantees that the world will suffer more trouble.