I really appreciate artists of the 20th century, and I can see a lot of their influence on my work, but to suggest that my design only fits within an 'ism' kind of bothers me.

You can just never desist. You have to always push back, whatever the pressures put on you.

How do you design it so that people can form a space of their own, and feel quiet and contemplative?

I had a dual role: designer and advocate.

I'm a little more measured. That sense of urgency I thought accompanied things - it can take a little longer. You have to take the long view.

I think my desire to imagine a future for this site came out of trying to come to terms with the emotions that day aroused.

I love New York, but I'd felt like an outsider here.

I believe that people are fundamentally are decent. And, yes, you will have people that sometimes will misbehave.

For two years nobody talked about anything other than the name arrangement. There was no fund-raising and no progress being made on construction and design.

PERFORMING TRIBUTE 9/11 shows the heroism of people who have chosen to respond to devastation and hatred with quiet determination and a belief that they can and will make the world a better place.

New York was a place I wanted to live and work all along. If I wasn't going to live in Israel, I had to live in New York.

You want to make God laugh? Tell him your future plans.

Anytime you do something from the heart, people just know it.

I think it would be bizarre to pick somebody to speak at the convention based on their sexual preference, because once you go down that road, why don't you pick a transvestite?

The art of politics is knowing what to do next.

America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the opposite is probably equally true.

A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number.

I'd like to get back into journalism. I'm hoping someone will offer me a job as a commentator or one of those political analysts that you see on the news shows all the time.

I think that power comes in numbers, and we're in an industry where the actors need to have a bigger voice.

I feel like I've influenced in the sense that if you want to do it, do it. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. But don't rely on what people are saying you can do or saying what you can't do.

Every word is a messenger. Some have wings; some are filled with fire; some are filled with death.