Maya Lin Quotes

When I started playing, there were no teams and no structure, so I had to play with the boys. I get very emotional when I think about the humiliation that I've suffered playing football.

Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' Wouldn't they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism.

I grew up in the Fifties, and the majority of people in my class had fathers living at home. I was very aware that I was in the minority. I had a foreign name, and my daddy didn't come and pick me up from school. I felt like an outsider, which probably helped me as an actress.

I don't feel uncomfortable in America, but every once in a while, I'm reminded that people don't see me the way I see me. It doesn't change my life, but it gives me a consciousness about it.

I was certainly never conscious of 'playing the woman.' I would not have approved of that. It is not a winning tactic. I operated in the world as I found it, and it was a man's world.

I feel like women are asked their age more than men.

People notice if you are black. People notice if you are female. We are certainly not either colorblind or gender-blind in this country, so I'm not suggesting that it isn't a factor. But I think in the final analysis, people will take a look at the positions, and they'll take a look at the issues.

Born in the UK, brought up in Ghana, it was a sort of childhood of hardship and difficulty.

I've had so many challenges throughout my career, however successful people perceive me to be.

When I say ' thug' I mean not a criminal, someone who beats you over the head, I mean the underdog. You could have two people- one person has everything he needs to succeed and one person has nothing. If the person who has nothing succeeds, he's a thug. Cuz he overcame all the obstacles.

If I'd been from a different background, I could have gone to a grammar school, I suppose. I might have been a different person.

I once got asked in an interview: 'Does it annoy you that the majority of your fans are teenage girls?' I was insulted and angry because it was sexist and ageist.

It's so wonderful that women continue to break down barriers and change societal expectations, but women still suffer discrimination for their gender, class, and race.

I think that if you're a writer and a woman, then you have to take humiliation very well.

I've always understood that, as a woman and as a person of color, I would always have to work harder; I would have to have thicker skin. I would have to be more mindful of my reactions, the way I spoke to people.

When I first joined the DA's office, there weren't that many women. So there was a fair degree of sexism. Everybody kind of got over it when they saw you doing your job.

Gender discrimination is not the only form of discrimination one has to deal with.

As a woman there's probably 20 people in your life that have underestimated you or will. Whether that be in your career or in your personal life and you've just got to battle it.

Black girls are punished, many times violently so, for questioning and challenging authority, which is something that is often celebrated and encouraged as a sign of intelligence and critical thinking in white boys.

The truth is, Silicon Valley doesn't like people who are older, and they're not that much of a friend of the woman. I certainly was a woman, and I was older.

I've never played on my gender.

I've never considered myself a feminist, but I'm happy that I've been raised as a strong, independent woman.

When you grow up on the other side of the tracks, you're used to taking a few bumps.

It's weird for minorities even just to buy tickets to the ballet. We feel like it's not a part of our lives and we're not a part of that world.

When you get a little knockback in your career, it gives you something to strive for.