I would like my architecture to inspire people to ...

I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.

If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness.

When you look at Japanese traditional architecture, you have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature. You can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with nature - this very unique to Japan.

Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.

We shape our buildings thereafter they shape us.

Whatever good things we build end up building us.

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.

We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.

This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.

High expectations weren't nurtured in my neck of nowhere back then - children weren't fawned over from an early age as 'gifted' and groomed for a prizewinning future self-esteem was considered something you had to pick from the garden yourself.

A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.