I am finally getting the chance to build large structures and break preconceptions that my designs are just sculptures for people to be in. But my work always comes down to the human scale.
I was raised to believe in myself. I know I'm cool. I'm not trying to brag or say I'm the man or anything like that. I don't lie or cheat, and I'm not mean to anybody. I treat people with respect.
For people who know both New York and the Bay Area, it is a complement to say that Oakland is San Francisco's Brooklyn. It's a complement both to Oakland and to Brooklyn. And, if you look at Brooklyn, Brooklyn is hot; Brooklyn is cool.
I'm sure that the meaning of the songs that I've written will change for me over the years, the same way that I can't even say what inspired some of the songs that I've been singing for a long time anymore.
I think people who go out and tell you how much they're gonna change things are the people who end up being just another whatever. I'm never trying to change anything. That's not for me.
My earliest attempts at writing were when I was seven. I would sit at the piano and transcribe the songs I heard on the radio. I'd change little things in the music and write different lyrics.
Sadly, I've seen a lot of bands hit that sort of peak and then eventually start supporting again, you know, which we will never do. We always put a lot of thought into the way that we are going to go, and we always change.
I thought people cared about music in a deep way, so I was writing to that spirit in people and in myself. It was me, thinking I knew what was up. Youth, who else can change the world?
I see the people in Detroit are very - they're like a lot of cities, but they're very proud to be from there and they really want to see change and they really want to see good things happen.
I know why we can't have a frank discussion with our policymakers - if you're in the government or in law enforcement you cannot acknowledge that drugs are anything but inherently evil and morally wrong.
I wouldn't say you worry about your health when you run. I would say a quarterback as an obligation to protect yourself as a runner, whether it's getting out of bounds, sliding or getting down, whatever it might be.
Most of the provisions designed to fix what ails our health system don't kick in until 2014, which, one wishes administration officials had noticed, is two years after he has to win an election.
Did you know that nearly one in three children live apart from their biological dads? Those kids are two to three times more likely to grow up in poverty, to suffer in school, and to have health and behavioral problems.
I have this idyllic love life, but my mind just won't accept that. I would like to bring a new guy home every night. I try to make humor out of that situation.
When I was a kid, my father didn't really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer; he didn't think I would amount to anything. My mother also.
What does the artist do? He draws connections. He ties the invisible threads between things. He dives into history, be it the history of mankind, the geological history of the Earth or the beginning and end of the manifest cosmos.
Because of the fashion, the young people don't have any access to the history of music, unless people like me revive it. There are very few people to revive it, because you can't earn any money doing it.
Who I am as an architect and the history of my work - that's clear to anybody who hires me. But I come in literally with nothing in my brain about what the building will look like.
Call it holistic or holographic thinking, it's been quite effective imagining the world's problems are all right in front of you on a smaller scale with your band. You deal with those relationships, and that's where real major change begins.
I get extremely nervous before performances. I pray and try to look at it as, 'I'll go out there and have fun,' but it's very nerve-wracking for me. I don't think that will ever change.
When we went to cover it I thought we would change it to a song of loving and longing instead of the sex machine song Kylie turned it into. I've met Kylie and told her we were covering her song and she was pleased.
