Ang Lee Quotes

I grew up with art from the innocent age of ten - with art, but with no sense of identity.

I'm finding things out about myself as a person - as a writer - as I write, and so are the people who listen to what I do. But they have this additional aspect of how they take the stuff that I do, and so it broadens the work, and it creates this strange connection.

I design therefore I become.

To some extent, I'm mildly surprised by every new piece, by the precise path that my interest takes.

There was a time in my acting career, where I was trying to figure out if acting was the thing to do. You know? I was always on this journey of trying to learn more about humanity and people - using the characters and situations as guideposts. I could switch up and do another job as long as I'm continuing that same search and that same journey of revealing my connection to humanity and the universe. And directing gives me the opportunity to explore ALL these different lives and their connection to their environments and the people. And I get to connect to the wires of the universe.

The creative person is constantly seeking to discover himself, to remodel his own identity, and to find meaning in what he creates.

I think the most important thing for me is a challenge. I'm not happy, creatively, unless I'm faced with a challenge. So, overcoming those challenges and really discovering characters that aren't like me helps me grow, as a person and as an artist.

I think that those of us who are ordinary disappear easily into the backdrop of life and we take things for granted. We often wake up in our lives and wonder how we got there. But the characters I create, the people I am drawn to, are quite extraordinary (and not always in wholesome ways), and they offer us the chance to understand who we really are and how we became who we are.

Everything I wanted before, I want twice as much now. And that doesn't mean material things; it means to explore more, to think more. Being an artist doesn't start because you're 21, and it doesn't end because you're 51. You are who you are until the day you die.

I think, for me specifically when it comes to music, I don't think that I need any persuading to think about it. It's always kind of in the back of your mind and - but I think it's part of who I am and always will be, I mean, in a very cellular way. When you grow up doing, you know, one thing, I think you get to this place where you want to try new things. And I do think that we live in the type of world where people get comfortable with you in one way, and so seeing you in a different way, it takes some time.

In LA, you think you're making something up, but it's making you up.

The truth comes out... I think when you fight you find out who you are

When you pick a career like acting, it's challenging, but it's a lesson every time you put yourself out there. I wouldn't change it for the world - I love what I learn every single day.

I think that experiencing through art is a wonderful way to expand the horizon and everything around it.

I don't think they understand it's as important as math and science. It rounds you out as a person. I think it gives you a love of certain things. You don't have to become the next great composer. It's just nice to have heard certain things or to have seen certain things. It's part of being a human being.

I think you're always policing yourself by trying to do what you think would be "cool" and accepted by other people, until you start to figure out who you really want to be. Growing up is an ongoing push-and-pull of you being yourself and you performing to what society expects you to be.

I was a ballet dancer for so long, but when I realized I had reached my limit and that I couldn't go any further I knew I wanted to pursue acting. That's one thing you don't use as a dancer - your voice. And the one thing I use most in my life is my voice so it's wonderful to get to express myself artistically through the biggest instrument I use.

I feel like you can't really be truthful as an artist and empathize with the human experience, unless you know your truth and you're not living a lie. So I'm learning through it, and it's making me a better person, and it's making me a better artist, I think.

When I went to Africa I think that was when I really found a way to deal with what I had recently discovered; in two-dimensional terms, at least.

I think in losing we find out who that person really is.

I think you always take away a little bit of a character with you, and it kinda like hangs on you for a bit, and then as time kind of goes and wears off a little bit.

Creative people have an abiding curiosity and an insatiable desire to learn how and why things work. They take nothing for granted. They are interested in things around them and tend to stow away bits and pieces of information in their minds for the future use. And, they have a great ability to mobilize their thinking and experiences for use in solving a new problem.

From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art.

I am much more settled in who I am. I think a lot of your 20s is trying to figure out who you are - you're on your own, you've got you first job, you've got your first apartment, you're living away from your parents, you're just discovering who you are. I have deep, long friendships now and real relationships and I am so excited about the rest of my 40s.

Sometimes people say yo do you think rap changed you. No doubt it changed me. If I wasn't making records I'd still be hanging every night.