I was probably the first kid in my high school to go to Yale. I applied almost as a lark. Then, when I got there, I was the dumbest person in your class.
Maya Lin

I went through withdrawal when I got out of graduate school. It's what you learn, what you think. That's all that counts.
Maya Lin

I'm not in a hurry to do a lot of projects. I am very resolved in each project I take on.
Maya Lin

If we can't face death, we'll never overcome it. You have to look it straight in the eye. Then you can turn around and walk back out into the light.
Maya Lin

In art or architecture your project is only done when you say it's done. If you want to rip it apart at the eleventh hour and start all over again, you never finish. I was one of those crazy creatures.
Maya Lin

It terrified me to have an idea that was solely mine to be no longer a part of my mind, but totally public.
Maya Lin

It was a requirement by the veterans to list the 57,000 names. We're reaching a time that we'll acknowledge the individual in a war on a national level.
Maya Lin

It's funny, as you live through something you're not aware of it.
Maya Lin

It's only in hindsight that you realize what indeed your childhood was really like.
Maya Lin

Math, it's a puzzle to me. I love figuring out puzzles.
Maya Lin

My dad was dean of fine arts at the university. I was casting bronzes in the school foundry. I was using the university as a playground.
Maya Lin

My goal is to strip things down so that you need just the right amount of words or shape to convey what you need to convey. I like editing. I like it very tight.
Maya Lin

My grandfather, on my father's side, helped to draft one of the first constitutions of China. He was a fairly well-known scholar.
Maya Lin

My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions.
Maya Lin

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next.
Maya Lin

OK, it was black, it was below grade, I was female, Asian American, young, too young to have served. Yet I think none of the opposition in that sense hurt me.
Maya Lin

Our parents decided not to teach us Chinese. It was an era when they felt we would be better off if we didn't have that complication.
Maya Lin

Some artists want to confront. Some want to invoke thought. They're all necessary and they're all valid.
Maya Lin

Some of your teachers are actually closer in age to you than you think.
Maya Lin

Sometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field.
Maya Lin