I am obsessed with beauty. I want everything to be perfect and of course it isn't. And that's a tough place to be because you're never satisfied.

I want of course peace grace and beauty. How do you do that? You work for it.

The money is in a different league these days of course but I have special memories of the 60s and 70s which players today don't have. There wasn't the same celebrity attitude and media exposure. We had a bit more freedom.

I failed the LSAT. Basically if I had not failed I'd have been a lawyer and there would be no Spanx. I think failure is nothing more than life's way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome but in not trying. It is liberating.

That term's definitely got a negative aura to it because people think a diva is somebody with an attitude who demands things all the time. Of course there is that type of diva but my idea of a diva has always been a singer - whether male or female - who gets on that stage and captivates you with their presence and their voice.

I think failure is nothing more than life's way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome but in not trying. It is liberating. Most people attach failure to something not working out or how people perceive you. This way it is about answering to yourself.

Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.

Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.

Of course art world ethics are important. But museums are no purer than any other institution or business. Academics aren't necessarily more high-minded than gallerists.

Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best for that we must have recourse to art.

What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience a thought.

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and whilst abroad underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.

Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.

But after the time there I'd had it with fashion again so I left to go to architecture school in a summer course at Harvard which didn't last very long.

That Moorish architecture is all over the place of course. It affects me everywhere I see it as it does so many people. But Brand Library was a special place to me and I know I've paid homage to it many times in my drawings.

One of my favorite vacation places is Miami because of the people the water and the beach - of course - and the architecture on Miami Beach is so wonderful.

Of course I know very little about architecture and the older I get the less I know.

People can inhabit anything. And they can be miserable in anything and ecstatic in anything. More and more I think that architecture has nothing to do with it. Of course that's both liberating and alarming.

I think a certain amount of anger has been a fuel of mine if you want - but also some sort of sadness and plain mischief of course.

Our task of course is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think in fact that one could give that as a definition of revolution.

I really believe that all of us have a lot of darkness in our souls. Anger rage fear sadness. I don't think that's only reserved for people who have horrible upbringings. I think it really exists and is part of the human condition. I think in the course of your life you figure out ways to deal with that.

Children are amazing and while I go to places like Princeton and Harvard and Yale and of course I teach at Columbia NYU and that's nice and I love students but the most fun of all are the real little ones the young ones.

Hawaii was beautiful of course we played at Turtle Bay an amazing resort right on the ocean.

You know when I was a kid waiting on the bus I remember that was when I imagined my life. I imagined everything that I was gonna be when I grew up and I imagined all of these amazing journeys and amazing people I'd meet. Of course all of it has kind of come to fruition.