Maya Lin Quotes

Author Image

Maya Lin

Profession : Architect

Birth : October 5, 1959

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

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

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

Maya Lin

The role of art in society differs for every artist.

Maya Lin

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

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

It's funny, as you live through something you're not aware of it.

Maya Lin

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

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

Maya Lin

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

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

Maya Lin

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

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

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

Maya Lin

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

Maya Lin

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

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

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

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.

Maya Lin

All my work is much more peaceful than I am.

Maya Lin