#si

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 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 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. ↗

— Maya Lin

#blow #chemistry #enjoyed #explosives #hanging

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

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

— Maya Lin

#hindsight #indeed #like #only #realize

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

#constitutions #draft #fairly #father #first

Choices may be unbelievably hard but they're never impossible. To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that's not how a person with integrity acts. ↗

— Patrick Ness

#choice #responsibility #men

No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren. ↗

— Henry Taylor

#charmed #did #ear #ever #listener

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

#art #brain #completely #conviction #everything