Quotes By Ang Lee

The most mysterious feminine factor, the existence that we men, we don't know. It's woman. It's feminine. That's what the sword is about. That's the symbolic meaning of the sword.

I hate to think life is just facts and laws.

I hope people don't compare 2D and 3D because 3D's new, it's unfair to compare to 2D which is really sophisticated, even when we're jaded about it. 3D just began, give it a chance, let the equipment and projection system catch up and be better, let the price go down, let more filmmakers get a hold of it more easily.

I think the book struck me in a few ways that I thought very interesting to pick it as my first martial arts film. It has a very strong female character and it was very abundant in classic Chinese textures.

I'm just a pretty regular dad.

For a filmmaker, it's a rare chance to do a personal film on a big canvas.

In Taiwan, I'd be like Michael Jordan walking down the street.

I guess in Hollywood you chart your life by Oscars. You say to each other, 'Remember when that movie won that year? It was 2006. Remember that?'

I don't lead a Hollywood lifestyle.

The father figure is something I love, but also suffocate from and want to work against.

It's not a pleasure torturing actors, although some of them enjoy it.

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

I don't like to deal with studios.

I was very quiet, very shy and docile.

Directing, I get all kinds of inspiration. It's working with people. It's a lot more fun.

I don't think the Hulk is a superhero. He's the first Marvel character who is a tragic monster. Really an anti-hero.

I think life without spirit is in the dark, it is absurd.

Thinking back to those earlier days, I felt I was weak when I wasn't making movies, and then when I was, I thought I was weak as a family member.

As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.

My father was the center of the family, and everyone tried to please him.

I'm not a master of films, I'm rather a slave.

I think that at heart I am an old-fashioned Chinese, really I am.

I grew up pretty much prevented from knowing anything from Communist China except that they were the bad guys that stole our country.

Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done.

I grew up pretty peacefully, in that Eastern way. You easily solve problems, believe in harmony. Reduce conflicts, take orders until one day you give orders.

I feel like all of my characters now take this congested situation, they clash, and from there you purge yourself.

You become the movie you are making.

The thing we call critics are not really reviewers, they are not really critics. They don't have the discipline to write what we would term as critique - it's really just reviewers. They have a common man kind of taste. If you watch them overall, they are not different from the box-office. That's my view.

I do like challenge.

When I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that.