Top 169 Quotes & Sayings by Ang Lee

When there is a strong woman character in a story - that always grabs me.

When I have a full schedule like that, I don't see myself sitting there for a couple of months, doing the research, going through a painful process, it's just not my thing anymore.

I have two sons in America, and all they care about in Chinese culture is Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

My first instinct was to cast as close to the short story as possible, but then I realized that I needed actors who could go for it and that they had to function well as a couple in a love story.

I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.

I'm a drifter and an outsider. There's not one single environment I can totally belong to.

Meanwhile, the Ice Storm was still in development, And that was something I really wanted to do, and frankly I don't think I was ready to do a big production like this.

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.

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.

Fighting for identity is something that is very much in my life.

Every movie is unknown.

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.

The way I go about a lovemaking scene is that we will talk about it during the rehearsing time.

Usually with this genre the first thing that happens is a good fight sequence to show that you're in good hands. So we broke that rule. I think a lot of that comes from the western audience.

To me, Ennis stands for the conservative side of America. He's the biggest homophobe in the whole movie - culturally and psychologically - but by the time he admits his feelings, it's too late.

I'm such a late bloomer.

I am a shy person.

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

You become the movie you are making.

There's a level of sophistication of filmmaking that's mind-boggling. Anything you need for your movie, there's an establishment that can make it happen really fast.

Now I'm kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.

A movie is really provocation. It's not a message, it's not a statement.

I feel that everyone has a Hulk inside, and each of our Hulks is both scary and, potentially, pleasurable. That's the scariest thing about them.

I was very quiet, very shy and docile.

Kids don't even read comic books anymore. They've got more important things to do - like video games.

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.

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

The L.A. weather is a lot like Taiwan's, where you don't observe four seasons, so the years can pass and you don't feel a thing.

The fear factor actually brings the genuineness.

My culture doesn't regard acting highly.

I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.

Sometimes films ignore other points of view because it's simpler to tell the story that way, but the more genuine and sympathetic you are to different points of view and situations, the more real the story is.

When I see something I like, that's all that counts. What they use, how they get there, I never bother them.

I'm not macho, I'm not a Mel Gibson sort of person.

I try to please everyone.

I think a movie is a media that is evoking feelings.

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 wanted to shoot straight, mainstream, somehow off-beat. Not only realistic West, which is quite unfamiliar to the world's population - even to a lot of Americans.

Many times when you make a movie, it feels like your biggest mistake. But even if a film isn't a hit, you shouldn't view it as a mistake.

Not taboo - it's just that straight actors still risk their careers commercially and economically. They have to please the crowd - they're movie stars; their image is their industry. It goes beyond acting.

I'm quite lazy.

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

I took the name Green Destiny from - well there is such a sword called Green Destiny. It is green because you keep twisting it, it's an ancient skill, you keep twisting it and knocking it and twisting it until it is very elastic and light.

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.

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

Sensitivity and money are like parallel lines. They don't meet.

So many times you see beautiful lovemaking scenes with a lot of exposure or an awkward lovemaking scene, but I think it's very rare that you see it private.

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.

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.

I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.

The woman's perspective is like the dark side of the moon: it always exists, but it is never exposed, at least not in my culture.

I think doing period piece is easier, because after a certain distance, everybody is equal, I think. The relative contemporary is harder. I think that's the way it is.

I like to think I'm un-categorisable.

I don't lead a Hollywood lifestyle.

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.

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

I like to do drama, something about life that could be disappointing.

I think people are universal.

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.

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.