My own interest in art was because of my mother. My father didn't like contemporary art, so he didn't give her large sums to spend. So, she began buying prints and drawings. During my school days, I remember sitting in on many of the early meetings.

I think of art as the highest level of creativity. To me, it is one of the greatest sources of enjoyment.

The Japanese have a wonderful sense of design and a refinement in their art. They try to produce beautiful paintings with the minimum number of strokes.

I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education.

I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education. In order to appreciate cultures of another nation, one needs to go there, know the people and mingle with the culture of that country. One way to do that, if one is lucky enough, is to buy things from those cultures.

I am convinced that material things can contribute a lot to making one's life pleasant, but, basically, if you do not have very good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty and sad and material things cease to be important.

Philanthropy is involved with basic innovations that transform society, not simply maintaining the status quo or filling basic social needs that were formerly the province of the public sector.

I owe much to mother. She had an expert's understanding, but also approached art emotionally.

MoMA is doubling its space, and I decided to raise the money for it.

My grandfather, along with Carnegie, was a pioneer in philanthropy, which my father then practiced on a very large scale.