In terms of this issue of these industrial gases affecting the environment, at the beginning the road was not easy, because we were suggesting that society had to change, that industries had to do something different than they were doing at that time. And of course, initially we did not meet with a good reception to these ideas from industry. And even from the scientific community — even though our ideas were well received in the small group of specialists in what we were doing — it was not necessarily well received by the scientific community at large. So we really had to continue doing as good a science as we could, and at the same time trying to well communicate our conviction that it was something important, something that had to change in the way society was functioning.

Then you have the clients. The care and feeding of clients is really one of the main obstacles, because you always have a client with some preconceived idea of what a house looks like, and all you want him to do is leave a check and go to Europe for a couple of years. Or leave two checks. But alas, life isn’t simple. If it were, more people would be better architects.

I have generally had few setbacks and few obstacles. I have been very fortunate in that things have been handed to me rather than my going out after them. There are a few roads that I didn’t take that I maybe could have. When I was a graduate student, maybe a second-year graduate student, I worked frequently at the Illinois State Library in Springfield, and one day, the director of that library called me into his office and said, “I have some news to tell you that is still very hush-hush, but I’m resigning from this job. I’m going to the Chicago Historical Society, and I’m going to recommend that you be appointed in my place.

I realized that the biggest obstacle was my mind. It was the biggest obstacle, and if I could get out of the way of myself, I would grow. So every time I had that attitude, I changed it, and I’d say, “You can. Today you can, and take it one day at a time, and today, I’m going to get up and I’m not going to think about the other six days of this week. I’m going to get up right now, and I’m going to go to the gym, and I’m going to learn about my boxing, and I’m going to be in the moment.” You know, in anything, you hit a wall, and then you have to break through it, and I just had to get out of my own way.

I never thought that we would fail or that I would fail. I knew from time to time we may make some blunders. We may make some mistakes, but we were not going to fail.

I would come home and ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, 'Why?'. And they would say, 'That's the way it is. Don't get in the way, don't get in trouble!'

When I was growing up on a farm in rural Alabama, I fell in love with raising chickens. They seem truly innocent. Whenever I'm around chickens, I feel happy.

Participating in a transformative movement that advocated human dignity and changed America forever.

I don't want to die. I don't think I'm going to die…but we all have to die. Since I do, I hope I live on in the hearts and minds of people.

When I was growing up I wanted to be a minister. I wanted to preach.