I don't like to talk about sustainability, because sometimes I see green buildings that don't appear any different from those in the past.

I grew up in the old neighborhood of Beijing where you had a courtyard and trees. Actually, the whole of Beijing was a garden - the Forbidden City - and the lakes and gardens in the city center were all artificial.

Architecture is a special kind of career that showcases the accumulations of culture, time, and history.

Chaoyang Park Plaza is about how to carry the traditional culture into a new format in modern architecture. Instead of building a boundary between the city and the park, I tried to design this building to emerge from the natural landscape.

I'm trying to make sure that for myself and for my family, I'm staying as close to the heart of God that I possibly can.

I'm one of those writers who, when writing, believes she's god-and that she hasn't bestowed free will on any of her characters. In that sense there are no surprises in any of my books.

I belonged to the 'Point Break' generation - I watched the original when I was 13 years old. It's basically the story of the rescue of the human spirit, and we continue to fight that same spiritual battle, but with a political expression.

Faith is not a commodity that you either have or don't have enough of, or the right kind of. It's an ongoing process. The opposite of faith is despair.