Maya Lin Quotes

People make a grievous error thinking that a list of facts is the truth. Facts are just the bare bones out of which truth is made.

You have to think not about what you mean but about what people hear.

I often think people don't know what to think of me, and in fact this is precisely the objective of many of my creations. Even back in the days with Lady Starlight, my original partner, we aimed to bemuse. This feeling of bemusement - it's neither good nor bad. It just is. Whether critics realize it or not, they've been in a very long argument since my public birth.

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.

If I paint a hammer and sickle people may think it is a representation of Communism, but for me it is only a hammer and sickle. I just want to reproduce the objects for what they are, not for what they mean.

Art is supposed to spark conversation and make people think.

she thinks I'm psycho cause I like to rhyme her name with things.

People should be free to take whatever they want from music and I think that over time I realized that different people always find different things in my songs, which is really good.

I like the saying: "The world is as you are." And I think films are as you are. That's why, although the frames of a film are always the same - the same number, in the same sequence, with the same sounds - every screening is different. The difference is sometimes subtle but it's there. It depends on the audience. There is a circle that goes from the audience to the film and back. Each person is looking and thinking and feeling and coming up with his or her own sense of things. And it's probably different from what I fell in love with.

People are surprised that I'm nice and it helps me out a little bit; it's easy to be nice when everyone thinks you're going to be a jerk but if people think you're a nice guy then it's tough because it's what they expect.

Anything produced and then exhibited for public view is open to interpretation.

I put out a lot of ideas in the lyrics and the way I do my things. There's a lot of ideas floatin' around and people who know what it is. People will pick it up if they know what to pick up.

I also feel like it's the right of the people hearing them to have their own interpretations of what these songs mean. Sometimes people will see things that I don't see.

Part of the reason I make things realistic is, I don’t really want to have to explain my work. What I wish to communicate is done so people can make their own interpretation, and if it’s different to my idea it doesn't matter.

When years from now people look back on today, they will think the same thing they already do but with more reasons for it.

I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say.

I don't expect everyone to get something deep out of it. Some people can just listen to the music, or get their aggressions out, but I think with any great painting or movie, album or whatever it is, it's better if people can take what they need from it. That they're not forced to get some particular message.

Most people seem to think I'm the kind of guy who shaves with a blowtorch. Actually I'm bookish and worrisome.

I think my thing is that I try and pick up on things that other people have maybe not picked up on.

I try to put in every one of my movies some sort of message. I don't want to overdo it, because I don't want people to get annoyed by it, but it's good to have a message.

I think people are a little bit intimidated by me. You know, I'm not exactly a wilting flower, so I think they're a little bit scared of me sometimes.

My films are misinterpreted all the time. I don't mind that. Everybody's films are misinterpreted. But there's no malice or stupidity in the people that misinterpret them. You know what you do, but someone else sees it, and they want to talk about it or write about it, and so they misinterpret them.

A story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important.

That's the trouble with, I think, my - the contemporary read of my work. So many people just simply say, "These are pretty pictures of black boys." They're not really thinking about, like, what the whole thing is.

I think as much as possible, an artist, if he has any kind of social or political concern, has to…expose as much as possible what he sees so that some people think about things that they don’t normally think about… [Art] should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.