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" A lot of my works deal with a passage, which is about time. I don't see anything that I do as a static object in space. It has to exist as a journey in time. "
Maya Lin
Space
Anything
Time
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" It was a requirement by the veterans to list the 57,000 names. We're reaching a time that we'll acknowledge the individual in a war on a national level. "
Maya Lin
War
Time
Names
" Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next. "
Maya Lin
You
Before
Guaranteed
" Every memorial in its time has a different goal. "
Maya Lin
Time
Memorial
Different
" I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character. "
Maya Lin
Architecture
Character
Art
" I was always making things. Even though art was what I did every day, it didn't even occur to me that I would be an artist. "
Maya Lin
Always
Every Day
Me
" For the most part things never get built the way they were drawn. "
Maya Lin
Things
Get
Never
" It's funny, as you live through something you're not aware of it. "
Maya Lin
Live
Funny
You
" I probably have fundamentally antisocial tendencies. I never took one extracurricular activity. I just failed utterly at that level. Part of me still rebels against that. "
Maya Lin
Against
Level
Me
" When I was very little, we would get letters from China, in Chinese, and they' be censored. We were a very insular little family. "
Maya Lin
China
Letters
Little
" Math, it's a puzzle to me. I love figuring out puzzles. "
Maya Lin
Puzzles
Love
Me
" When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business. "
Maya Lin
War
View
People
" I had very few friends. We always ate dinner with our parents. We didn't want to go out. American adolescence was a lot wilder than I would have felt comfortable with. "
Maya Lin
Parents
Friends
Dinner
" My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions. "
Maya Lin
Authority
College
Me
" In art or architecture your project is only done when you say it's done. If you want to rip it apart at the eleventh hour and start all over again, you never finish. I was one of those crazy creatures. "
Maya Lin
Crazy
Start
You
" I really enjoyed hanging out with some of the teachers. This one chemistry teacher, she liked hanging out. I liked making explosives. We would stay after school and blow things up. "
Maya Lin
Teachers
School
She
" I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was. "
Maya Lin
Vietnam War
Politics
Veterans
" I loved logic, math, computer programming. I loved systems and logic approaches. And so I just figured architecture is this perfect combination. "
Maya Lin
Logic
Architecture
Loved
" My grandfather, on my father's side, helped to draft one of the first constitutions of China. He was a fairly well-known scholar. "
Maya Lin
Father
China
Draft
" 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. "
Maya Lin
Brain
Help
You
" 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. "
Maya Lin
You
Learning
Only
" I was probably the first kid in my high school to go to Yale. I applied almost as a lark. Then, when I got there, I was the dumbest person in your class. "
Maya Lin
Class
School
Person
" Warmth isn't what minimalists are thought to have. "
Maya Lin
Thought
Warmth
" Sometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field. "
Maya Lin
True
You
Creative
" I'm not in a hurry to do a lot of projects. I am very resolved in each project I take on. "
Maya Lin
Am
Take
Projects
" It terrified me to have an idea that was solely mine to be no longer a part of my mind, but totally public. "
Maya Lin
Idea
Terrified
Mine
" 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. "
Maya Lin
Off
Better
Us
" If we can't face death, we'll never overcome it. You have to look it straight in the eye. Then you can turn around and walk back out into the light. "
Maya Lin
Eye
Face
Light
" I loved school. I studied like crazy. I was a Class A nerd. "
Maya Lin
Like
Crazy
School
" The role of art in society differs for every artist. "
Maya Lin
Every
Artist
Art
" Some of your teachers are actually closer in age to you than you think. "
Maya Lin
You
Teachers
Some