Ang Lee Quotes

Once you work with a studio on a film, the studio is sort of like this enormous clam that just opens, takes everything and then closes, and no one enters again. They own it all.

That's why I'm really trying to produce my own stuff. This film was so good, because I produced it myself, and developed it, and made it with New Line, which is a smaller studio, so I was in control of a lot of stuff that I wasn't in control of for my other films.

I still want to do features, but on my own terms.

I always thought that if record companies didn't understand me, fine - I'd go and do it by myself.

I think, for me, the goal was never really for my EPs to go mainstream. I think the intention of them was to create a little bit of buzz and to show my musicality because I wrote and produced the EPs myself. The goal was to experiment, with no rules.

I publish my own music. I'm creating my own songbook. It works that way for me; I'm very independent.

I don't miss directing at all, and I don't miss screenwriting either because somebody's always telling you to do something different.

But if I really want to produce my own work and tell stories, then I will.

As a self-published author, you have the choice. Embrace the power to create a book that is truly yours. Don't be a whiner or a copycat.

My experience with record labels throughout my career has generally fallen into wishing I could do things that they're not built to do, whether it be arguing about having a nicer package - because I do believe some people care about that - to trying to always bank on art-versus-the-easy-commerce route; there's always been headbutting involved.

It's always push and pull with a record company.

I've never taken the steps to be 'successful': I've never had a manager or signed to a publishing house.

A lot of things encouraged me to start my label. I think it's very important for an artist to know how many records they've sold and where they've sold. I know that I have never been treated the way I'm supposed to be treated - like an artist. That's why I do things for myself. I feel like I'm a free man.

Actors dread working with studios because they dictate what you do in a way that independent movies can't.

I always wanted to do things on my own terms, and unfortunately in this industry, that's not something that is easily given. You're at the mercy of other people, but then you still have that drive to continue on. That's an equation for a lot of heartbreak.

I financed and made my own films from the start. My path has been autonomous and independent, so I don't have any horror stories about glass ceilings and expectations and tense studio meetings.

As a filmmaker, one tends to want to evolve evermore towards a place of independence.

Yes, I worked hard to put together an experimental show on a budget of zero. But I was not being exploited by anyone. I was in charge.

When I was coming up, I was, and am, producing, mixing, mastering, and writing everything. I would say that all the time. For one, self-sufficiency is a message that should be put out there: you don't have to outsource everything. Two, I'm proud of it.

I get to say 'no' to a lot of things. That, for an artist, is crazy.

Before 1999, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas offered to get me exhibitions, but joining the Stuckists put a kaibosh on all that - because I wasn't prepared to be controlled. I agreed to co-found the Stuckists to be allowed to say what I wanted, and I left the Stuckists because I didn't really want to be in them in the first place.

What pisses me off is when I've got seven or eight record company fat pig men sitting there telling me what to wear.

I'm not going to wait on anybody to put out music or a visual. Everything I will do is on my own. I'm not waiting on anyone.

I'm a little bit more proud of Solange. She chose to do it her way. Because in the beginning, we wanted to mold her into this pop star, and that is not who she is. And we were wrong. I was wrong, the record labels were wrong... She wanted to do it her own way, and she did.

I like artists to have some freedom.