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" 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
Related Quotes:
" 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
" All my work is much more peaceful than I am. "
Maya Lin
Work
Than
I Am
" It's funny, as you live through something you're not aware of it. "
Maya Lin
Live
Funny
You
" 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
" Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next. "
Maya Lin
You
Before
Guaranteed
" Math, it's a puzzle to me. I love figuring out puzzles. "
Maya Lin
Puzzles
Love
Me
" 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
" The role of art in society differs for every artist. "
Maya Lin
Every
Artist
Art
" Warmth isn't what minimalists are thought to have. "
Maya Lin
Thought
Warmth
" 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
" The definition of a modern approach to war is the acknowledgement of individual lives lost. "
Maya Lin
War
Individual
Lost
" My dad was dean of fine arts at the university. I was casting bronzes in the school foundry. I was using the university as a playground. "
Maya Lin
University
Arts
Playground
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Maya Lin
Studying
Thought
White
" I started studying what the nature of a monument is and what a monument should be. And for the World War III memorial I designed a futile, almost terrifying passage that ends nowhere. "
Maya Lin
War
Studying
Nature
" I didn't have anyone to play with so I made up my own world. "
Maya Lin
My Own
Own
Play
" Some of your teachers are actually closer in age to you than you think. "
Maya Lin
You
Teachers
Some
" 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
" 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
" 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
" Some artists want to confront. Some want to invoke thought. They're all necessary and they're all valid. "
Maya Lin
Want
Artists
Necessary
" 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
" You have to let the viewers come away with their own conclusions. If you dictate what they should think, you've lost it. "
Maya Lin
You
Own
Lost
" 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
" 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
" It's only in hindsight that you realize what indeed your childhood was really like. "
Maya Lin
Realize
You
Childhood
" I left science, then I went into art, but I approach things very analytically. I choose to pursue both art and architecture as completely separate fields rather than merging them. "
Maya Lin
Choose
Art
Architecture
" I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me. "
Maya Lin
Art
Looking
Me