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

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.

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.

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.

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

My grandfather, on my father's side, helped to draft one of the first constitutions of China. He was a fairly well-known scholar.

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.