113 Quotes by Maya Lin

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.

When I was very little, we would get letters from China, in Chinese, and they' be censored. We were a very insular little family.

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.

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 really can't function as a celebrity. Entertainers are celebrities. I'm an architect. I'm an artist. I make things.

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.

If you don't remember history accurately, how can you learn?

If we forget what used to be, then we’ve lost an ability to really be sensitive to our surroundings.

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