 Growing up, I thought I was white. It didn't occur to me I was Asian-American until I was studying abroad in Denmark and there was a little bit of prejudice. |
| OK, it was black, it was below grade, I was female, Asian American, young, too young to have served. Yet I think none of the opposition in that sense hurt me. |
| I'm not in a hurry to do a lot of projects. I am very resolved in each project I take on. |
| I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character. |
| Even though I build buildings and I pursue my architecture, I pursue it as an artist. I deliberately keep a tiny studio. I don't want to be an architectural firm. I want to remain an artist. |
| My dad was dean of fine arts at the university. I was casting bronzes in the school foundry. I was using the university as a playground. |
| My grandfather, on my father's side, helped to draft one of the first constitutions of China. He was a fairly well-known scholar. |
| Some of your teachers are actually closer in age to you than you think. |
| I was probably the first kid in my high school to go to Yale. I applied almost as a lark. Then, when I got there, I was the dumbest person in your class. |
| You couldn't put me in a social group setting. I'm probably a terrible anarchist deep down. |
| I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was. |
| All my work is much more peaceful than I am. |
| If we can't face death, we'll never overcome it. You have to look it straight in the eye. Then you can turn around and walk back out into the light. |
| Math, it's a puzzle to me. I love figuring out puzzles. |
| It terrified me to have an idea that was solely mine to be no longer a part of my mind, but totally public. |
| For the most part things never get built the way they were drawn. |
| Warmth isn't what minimalists are thought to have. |
| In art or architecture your project is only done when you say it's done. If you want to rip it apart at the eleventh hour and start all over again, you never finish. I was one of those crazy creatures. |
| You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art. |
| My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions. |
