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.

Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you.

A lot of my works deal with a passage, which is about time. I don't see anything that I do as a static object in space. It has to exist as a journey in time.

I probably have fundamentally antisocial tendencies. I never took one extracurricular activity. I just failed utterly at that level. Part of me still rebels against that.

To fly we have to have resistance.

An artist fights to retain the integrity of a work so that it remains a strong, clear vision. Art is and should be the act of an individual willing to say something new, something not quite familiar.

Our lives are given meaning by our actions-accomplishments made while we are "here" that extend beyond our own time.

If we forget what used to be, then we’ve lost an ability to really be sensitive to our surroundings.

You have to let the viewers come away with their own conclusions. If you dictate what they should think, you've lost it.

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

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.

Well, just get used to it, because you're a long ways away from Kansas, my dear. She actually started singing "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" as she traipsed to the counter.

None of my characters are rich or famous, and the situations they find themselves in could happen to anyone.

Freedom begins with what we teach our children. That is why Jews became a people whose passion is education, whose heroes are teachers and whose citadels are schools.

Be more dedicated to making solid achievements than in running after swift but synthetic happiness

I wanted to live where I could pop to the bar that Humphrey Bogart took Lauren Bacall to, or the little restaurant where Charlie Chaplin had a booth.

Food made by hand is an act of defiance and runs contrary to everything in our modernity. Find it; eat it; it will go. It has been around for millennia. Now it is evanescent, like a season.

The loss of life will be irreplaceable.

Merely to breathe freely does not mean to live.

Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better.

I think you should ride the line between fatigue and chaos. The chaos keeps the energy level and spontaneity maximized, while fatigue is just over the edge, and you should try to avoid it.