Maya Lin

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.

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next.

Sometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field.

Warmth isn't what minimalists are thought to have.

For the most part things never get built the way they were drawn.

A lot of my works deal with a passage, which is about time. I don't see anything that I do as a static object in space. It has to exist as a journey in time.

Every memorial in its time has a different goal.

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.

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

All my work is much more peaceful than I am.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It terrified me to have an idea that was solely mine to be no longer a part of my mind, but totally public.

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.

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

When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business.

Some artists want to confront. Some want to invoke thought. They're all necessary and they're all valid.