Maya Lin Quotes

I went through withdrawal when I got out of graduate school. It's what you learn, what you think. That's all that counts.

We know under Nebraska there is an underground aquifer that is probably underneath the whole state, but what form does it take? I kind of want to focus on that, for almost political means, because we keep digging more wells. We're not replenishing, and we're having a crisis in water around the world. But how do you visualize it? I don't know, so I know what I want to study.

I also wanted remembering the past relevant to the present. Some people wanted me to put the names in alphabetical order. I wanted them in chronological order so that a veteran could find his time within the panel. It's like a thread of life.

To fly we have to have resistance.

I do think the smaller-scale studio works have that incredible love of data crunching, whereas I would say the large-scale earthworks tend to be much more stripped-down. With the mappings, as connected as they are to a much more analytical idea, what's a map? And can I make a map about time? I think the first time was Hurricane Sandy, the flood plane; a moment in time, but indelibly marked on any of us who were in the city. Mapping time is something that I'm really interested in.

I always give the analogy of the Earth at Night picture, of 7.3 billion of us, right? And everyone says, "Well, that's population." Well, if you took the entire world's population and you lived at the density of Manhattan proper - not a bad place to live - how much space do 7.3 billion people take up? The state of Colorado. At which point I end my lectures, because I want you to be thinking ... is this really a question of population, or is this a question of land use and resource consumption? And let's face it, the top 1.3 billion of us are doing all the damage. Sorry.

Architecture is like a mythical fantastic. It has to be experienced. It can't be described. We can draw it up and we can make models of it, but it can only be experienced as a complete whole.

It's only in hindsight that you realize what indeed your childhood was really like.

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.

Math, it's a puzzle to me. I love figuring out puzzles.

All my work is much more peaceful than I am.

I cannot force a design; I do not see this process as being under my conscious control.

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.

I begin by imagining an artwork verbally. I try to describe in writing what the project is, what it is trying to do. I need to understand the artwork without giving it a specific materiality or solid form.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I didn't have anyone to play with so I made up my own world.

The definition of a modern approach to war is the acknowledgement of individual lives lost.

Our lives are given meaning by our actions-accomplishments made while we are "here" that extend beyond our own time.

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

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.

Art is very tricky because it's what you do for yourself. It's much harder for me to make those works than the monuments or the architecture.

To fly, we must have resistance.

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.

Warmth isn't what minimalists are thought to have.

I loved school. I studied like crazy. I was a Class A nerd.

Every memorial in its time has a different goal.

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.

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