Lin Quotes

I just really, really, really hate to lose. Really.

I didn't have anyone to play with so I made up my own world.

I just remembered when I was an adolescent girl wanting to leave my island and find my calling.

There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.

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.

Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do.

We should not expect people to be good, but should make it impossible for them to be bad.

I realize I had to learn ... to stop chasing the perishable prizes of this earth ... and give my best effort unto God and trust Him with the results.

And when other people see me play basketball...the way I treat my teammates, the opponents, the refs, that's all a reflection of God's image and God's love so that's the stuff I try to focus on.

If one's bowels move, one is happy, and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.

Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.

To me, the American Dream is being able to follow your own personal calling. To be able to do what you want to do is incredible freedom.

Writing a poem is unwriting a knot, like untying a shoelace that is clubbing your foot.

Growing up, I thought I was white. It didn't occur to me I was Asian-American until I was studying abroad in Denmark and there was a little bit of prejudice.

Let us face ourselves bravely as we are. For only a philosophy that recognizes reality can lead us into true happiness, and only that kind of philosophy is sound and healthy.

I've surrendered that to God. I'm not in a battle with what everybody else thinks anymore.

When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business.

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.

I like to think of my work as creating a private conversation with each person, no matter how public each work is and no matter how many people are present

The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.

All my work is much more peaceful than I am.

Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother

Happiness for me is largely a matter of digestion.

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.

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.

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

I'm the music guy, I get to wear the music hat, but being able to be that guy in the room is a thrill at this level and caliber.

If I had a day to myself I would just play video games with my brothers.

What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?

Art is very tricky because it's what you do for yourself. It's much harder for me to make those works than the monuments or the architecture.

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

In the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them.

I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living.

Having small group once a week gives me a lot of encouragement and accountability. Even though I go to church, I don't really know many people there, but my real community is my small group.

I wouldn't give a performer something I couldn't deliver myself.

The theater should always be a safe space.

I got to fall in love. I got to win a war. I got to write words that inspired a nation.

Sometimes an alien would stand with a moose, not because of solidarity, but because of accidentally doing it.

The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious ... it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.

Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.

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

I think I started writing because no one had ever told me you can write about the things you know in a musical. They don't have to come from some far off place.

The music you love when you're a teenager is always going to be the most important to you.

Alas, our rulers are not gods, but puny, fallible men, like the kings who constantly forget their parts, and we common men should be their prompters.

I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing.

When I’m on the court, I try to play with all my emotion and heart.

The wise man reads both books and life itself.

Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.

I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal trying to reach my goal.

Only he who handles his ideas lightly is master of his ideas, and only he who is master of his ideas is not enslaved by them.