Maya Lin Quotes

"My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions."

"Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next."

"OK, it was black, it was below grade, I was female, Asian American, young, too young to have served. Yet I think none of the opposition in that sense hurt me."

"Our parents decided not to teach us Chinese. It was an era when they felt we would be better off if we didn't have that complication."

"Some artists want to confront. Some want to invoke thought. They're all necessary and they're all valid."

"Some of your teachers are actually closer in age to you than you think."

"The only thing that mattered was what you were to do in life, and it wasn't about money. It was about teaching, or learning."

"The process I go through in the art and the architecture, I actually want it to be almost childlike. Sometimes I think it's magical."

"The role of art in society differs for every artist."

"To me, the American Dream is being able to follow your own personal calling. To be able to do what you want to do is incredible freedom."

"We were unusually brought up; there was no gender differentiation. I was never thought of as any less than my brother."

"When I was very little, we would get letters from China, in Chinese, and they' be censored. We were a very insular little family."

"You couldn't put me in a social group setting. I'm probably a terrible anarchist deep down."

"You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art."

"You have to let the viewers come away with their own conclusions. If you dictate what they should think, you've lost it."

"You should be having more fun in high school, exploring things because you want to explore them and learning because you love learning-not worrying about competition."

"It terrified me to have an idea that was solely mine to be no longer a part of my mind, but totally public."

"To fly we have to have resistance."

"For the most part things never get built the way they were drawn."

"Growing up, I thought I was white. It didn't occur to me I was Asian-American until I was studying abroad in Denmark and there was a little bit of prejudice."