“We want you to do it. If you need more money just tell me. I’ll pay you what you want. But you’ve got to do it.”

So I thought, oh my gosh, you know, this here is the fulcrum. I mean I’m actually at the point now where this opportunity is being handed to me on a plate, and have I got the courage to deal with it or not?

— Christopher Alexander, Lecture at the Institute of Architecture in London, 1995