I am deeply aware of the dimension of luck. It’s so important to be prepared to receive it, but it is a major factor. There’s no question.

There’s no point breaking a lot of crockery unnecessarily.

I must have been 12 years old. I remember it was raining. We passed by the National Gallery, and that wonderful pink marble, in the rain it gets a very rich rose. I remember looking up and saying to my parents, ‘That’s the kind of job I would like to have some day.

The Washingtonian said it shouldn’t be built. The gallery’s East Building is now considered a triumph, and members of the American Association of Architects have voted it one of the best buildings of all time.

I think everybody has a bent, and the key is to follow that bent. So much human wastage comes from people who are doing things with their lives that they really aren’t happy with.

There are more ways of skinning a cat than rubbing its fur the wrong way.

No one will understand a Japanese garden until you’ve walked through one, and you hear the crunch underfoot, and you smell it, and you experience it over time. Now there’s no photograph or any movie that can give you that experience.

Do what you really want to do. That’s why God put you on this earth.

I found that it wasn’t so oddball to like music and poetry and visual arts, they’re kindred spirits.