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Quotes by Ang Lee

I did a women's movie, and I'm not a woman. I did a gay movie, and I'm not gay. I learned as I went along.
– Ang Lee
In the past I've made movies that were pretty universally liked. You can't really hate them. You can discard them, but you can't really hate them.
– Ang Lee
Mainstream films have occupied Hollywood, but you can get bored very easily. It can be very repetitive, and I think now we want something fresh and something inspiring and different, daring. The mainstream film is very expensive to make and it scares people. It's made for the worldwide audience, you have to please so many people, and the business men start running the movies rather than artists.
– Ang Lee
On a Chinese film you just give orders, no one questions you. Here, you have to convince people, you have to tell them why you want to do it a certain way, and they argue with you. Democracy.
– Ang Lee
You can get rich or famous by doing the same thing.
– Ang Lee
When I sent those scripts, that was the lowest point of my life. We'd just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers, the screen showed I've got $26 left.
– Ang Lee
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.
– Ang Lee
Understanding where your food comes from, trying to bolster local farmers and local economies and having a better connection to the food around you and the people around you, only good can come of that. I love to be involved with things like that.
– Ang Lee
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.
– Ang Lee
These days I'm mostly familiar with two parts of L.A.: one is movie culture, and the other is Asian culture. The Westside is work, and the Eastside is Chinese - which means my friends.
– Ang Lee
The source of all the material comes from nothingness, illusion is working more on things you can prove. That's the principle, the essence of life, it is actually an illusion, not immaterial. That's worth pursuing. So illusion is not nothing. In a way, that is the truth.
– Ang Lee
The fear factor actually brings the genuineness.
– Ang Lee
The father figure is something I love, but also suffocate from and want to work against.
– Ang Lee
The cool thing about being a songwriter, or a writer, I guess, in general, you can take on a lot of different things, experience a lot of different things, just by writing about them.
– Ang Lee
Summer blockbusters are very expensive to make. They have things that have to be expensive, such as 600 effects shots or CG characters that have to go a certain way, or a film design that is different but expensive.
– Ang Lee
Sexuality is a big issue, but there are others - how much you commit to a relationship, to social obligation, to honesty and being honest with yourself.
– Ang Lee
Sensitivity and money are like parallel lines. They don't meet.
– Ang Lee
Over the years Woodstock got glorified and romanticised and became the event that symbolised Utopia. It's the last page of our collective memory of the age of innocence. Then things turned ugly and would never be the same again.
– Ang Lee
My father was the center of the family, and everyone tried to please him.
– Ang Lee
Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.
– Ang Lee
If there's something that can be formulated, regulated, give you security, then nobody would lose money. Every movie would be successful. And that's certainly not the case.
– Ang Lee
I'm not a romantic. In life I didn't have much experience with romance.
– Ang Lee
I'm just a pretty regular dad.
– Ang Lee
I'm actually living my life with the material I choose to work with.
– Ang Lee
I wasn't a very good teacher.
– Ang Lee
I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.
– Ang Lee
I think I can work with any type of actor.
– Ang Lee
I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.
– Ang Lee
I think a lot of people do big movies not because they are talented artists but because they can function in the circumstances.
– Ang Lee
I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making.
– Ang Lee
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.
– Ang Lee
I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.
– Ang Lee
I don't have incredible knowledge about films or of filmmaking history I'm not that kind of person.
– Ang Lee
Economically, it's more expensive to make movies. I hope digital movies change that.
– Ang Lee
After making several tragic movies in a row, I was looking to do a comedy, and one without cynicism.
– Ang Lee
3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning.
– Ang Lee