Maya Lin Quotes

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Maya Lin

Profession : Architect

Birth : October 5, 1959

Some of your teachers are actually closer in age to you than you think.

Maya Lin

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

You should be having more fun in high school, exploring things because you want to explore them and learning because you love learning-not worrying about competition.

Maya Lin

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

I loved logic, math, computer programming. I loved systems and logic approaches. And so I just figured architecture is this perfect combination.

Maya Lin

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

Maya Lin

My goal is to strip things down so that you need just the right amount of words or shape to convey what you need to convey. I like editing. I like it very tight.

Maya Lin

OK, it was black, it was below grade, I was female, Asian American, young, too young to have served. Yet I think none of the opposition in that sense hurt me.

Maya Lin

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.

Maya Lin

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

I'm not in a hurry to do a lot of projects. I am very resolved in each project I take on.

Maya Lin

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