Maya Lin Quotes

A great artist is a great man in a great child.

I guess one of the most magnificent things a novel can do is to change your perspective on the world, and to give it some sense of wonder, and that's what I find so exciting in writing fantasy, especially fantasy for children. Because already, I think children have a very special and unusual way of seeing the world.

I still feel childlike. Not childish - there's a difference. But to be childlike is to be savoured and treasured. I offer my books to those who like the things of childhood; the challenges, intrigue, joy and fun.

I find children inspiring. The way they look at the world. The magical world they live in, to me, is inspiring.

Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? Or is there not in the bosom of the wisest and the best some of the child's heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments?

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

Art is a sense of magic.

I didn't think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with nothing but talent, experience, and inspiration. The fresh piece of paper on the drawing board is as blank as the newly stretched piece of canvas.

To me, it's like the difference between a pen and a paintbrush. Music draws from almost the identical place as art does, which really is that intangible - it's like you're pulling from the ether. I don't know where it comes from. Nobody really does. It sort of arrives when it wants to.

I have no philosophy, my favourite thing is sitting in the studio.

I want to do nothing chic, I want to have ideas before beginning a piece.

Designis a revelation to me. It's like taking something that is not alive and giving it form, shape, substance, and life.

I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

The coming of the kids hasn't come out in my art yet.

Magic is my paint.

There's nothing I liked visually of the period I was a child. There was no dream in it, and nothing sparkled.

What I treasure most at any moment is intimacy, surprise, a sense of mystery, wit, depth and love. A handful of cherished friends offer me this, and the occasional singer or film-maker or artist. But my most reliable sources of electricity are Henry David Thoreau, Shakespeare, Melville and Emily Dickinson.

I love artists. I find them fascinating. To me, there really is a genuine magic in what they do.

I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

You can be childlike without being childish. A child always wants to have fun. Ask yourself, 'Am I having fun?'