Every generation tailors history to its taste.

The building is a national tragedy - a cross between a concrete candy box and a marble sarcophagus in which the art of architecture lies buried.

Every age cuts and pastes history to suit its own purposes; art always has an ax to grind.

Good architecture is still the difficult, conscientious, creative, expressive planning for that elusive synthesis that is a near-contradiction in terms: efficiency and beauty.

What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.

New York, thy name is irreverence and hyperbole. And grandeur.

Every creative act draws on the past whether it pretends to or not. It draws on what it knows. There's no such thing, really, as a creative act in a vacuum.

Symbol and metaphor are as much a part of the architectural vocabulary as stone and steel.

Real estate is the closest thing to the proverbial pot of gold.

Nothing was more up-to-date when it was built, or is more obsolete today, than the railroad station.

Postmodernism is a freewheeling, unfettered, and unapologetic pursuit of style.

Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you're doing.

If you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do.

A sweet lie is more gracious for us than a virulent but real truth.

Some are masters of illusions, some are ministers of trade, all under the same delusion, all their beds unmade.

I certainly hope I'm not still answering child-star questions by the time I reach menopause.

Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.

But I didn't know much about directing a movie.

A lot of American companies are now moving into Iraq. Iraq now has Pizza Hut, Subway, Taco Bell and Popeye's fried chicken. So, great, instead of oil for food, we're giving them oil in food.

To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn't know where he is going.

What I like is natural music. It's like I was born with a gift to do something naturally, which I have no choice but to followup on.