#de

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

#asian-american #bit #denmark #growing #growing up

How we are using up our home, how we are living and polluting the planet is frightening. It was evident when I was a child. It's more evident now. ↗

— Maya Lin

#evident #frightening #home #how #i

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. ↗

— Maya Lin

#anything #because #deliberately #did #eclipsed

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

— Maya Lin

#i #made #my own #own #play

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

#always #american #ate #comfortable #dinner

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. ↗

— Maya Lin

#architecture #art #aware #become #began

I started studying what the nature of a monument is and what a monument should be. And for the World War III memorial I designed a futile, almost terrifying passage that ends nowhere. ↗

— Maya Lin

#designed #ends #futile #i #iii

If we can't face death, we'll never overcome it. You have to look it straight in the eye. Then you can turn around and walk back out into the light. ↗

— Maya Lin

#back #death #eye #face #into

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

#longer #me #mind #mine #part

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

— Maya Lin

#hindsight #indeed #like #only #realize