I've learned that in order to achieve what I wanted, it made more sense to negotiate than to defend the autonomy of my work by pounding my fist on the table.

The multiplicity of ideas is what I'm interested in.

So I am totally aware that when I defend the autonomy of art I'm going counter to my own development. It's more an instinctive reaction, meant to protect the private aspect of the work, the part I am most interested in and which nowadays is at risk in our culture.

So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.

It's too simplistic to advance the notion of the autonomy of art as a reason for turning away from the public. You can have autonomy and simultaneously have connections with the social and political world.

The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art.

We only exist in terms of how we think we exist. Meaning every cultural development is fabricated and can be fabricated.

Scientific reality is the modern human condition, and you can see that in the symbolic nature of my work.

You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us.

I'm often called an old-fashioned modernist. But the modernists had the absurd idea that architecture could heal the world. That's impossible. And today nobody expects architects to have these grand visions any more.

So we can't go backwards, we can only go where the evolutionary trajectory is taking us and attune our ideas about ourselves and our existence to that course.

Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art.

The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value.

My buildings don't speak in words but by means of their own spaciousness.

But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour.

For me the meaning of my work is much more fluid.

Descriptions of my work depress me. They make me feel pinned down.

Our idea of nature is increasingly being determined by scientific developments. And they have become decisive for our image of reality.

Large-scale public projects require the agreement of large numbers of people.

I've been such an outsider my whole life.

I've learned that in order to achieve what I wanted, it made more sense to negotiate than to defend the autonomy of my work by pounding my fist on the table.

Architecture is the beginning of something because it's - if you're not involved in first principles, if you're not involved in the absolute, the beginning of that generative process, it's cake decoration.

Architecture is the story of how we see ourselves. It is the architect's job to service everyday life.

Find a place that you are comfortable with. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Make a lot of mistakes.

I lived in a state of rage from 12 to 20. Until college, I was beyond an outsider. I was a voyeur of life.

I think all good architecture should challenge you, make you start asking questions. You don't have to understand it. You may not like it. That's OK.

I think my clients would tell you I'm a problem solver. I'm not there to agree with people. I'm there to articulate a point of view. Am I insistent and tenacious? Absolutely. I could not get this work done if I was not.

I've always been interested in an architecture of resistance - architecture that has some power over the way we live. Working under adversarial conditions could be seen as a plus because you're offering alternatives. Still, there are situations that make you ask the questions: 'Do I want to be a part of this?'

I've grown up a little bit. I understand the importance of the negotiation. It is a collective act.

Look around at day-to-day life for ideas, and it finds its way into your work.

There is no modern prototype for a campus. You have to have a completely different model which has to do with transparency and exposing social connectivity and breaking down the Balkanization that happens departmentally.

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.

We need to begin an all-out diplomatic offensive on Darfur in order to prepare the way for a peacekeeping force that can ensure protection for the people of Darfur.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

I don't like to hurt people, I really don't like it at all. But in order to get a red light at the intersection, you sometimes have to have an accident.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

For someone who writes fiction, in order to activate the imagination and the unconscious, it's essential to be free.

It's a very hard and competitive business in which you have to fight every day in order to impose yourself.

I am co-counsel and as co-counsel I have the right to represent myself, speak for myself and conduct myself and my trial by myself in my best interests in order of due process.

I wanted to make the violence beautiful in order to heighten our revulsion.

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.

Testimony is an integral part of the Black religious tradition. It is the occasion where the believer stands before the community of faith in order to give account of the hope that is in him or her.

I don't fear death because I don't fear anything I don't understand. When I start to think about it, I order a massage and it goes away.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

I don't think you need a record deal to write songs. You don't need any other reason than you want to do it. It's a far cry from why some people do music today. They make it to order, which is pretty horrible.

I do to keep things sounding fresh. Sometimes just changing the running order of the show is a good idea.