Ang Quotes

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. ~ Ang Lee

I see a movie as a way of learning about the world, about myself, and learning about my relationship with people and art. ~ Ang Lee

Believe in God and you will have eternal life :) ~ Edward Ang

I find it hard to deliver straightforward things. ~ Ang Lee

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

Every movie is unknown. ~ Ang Lee

(Golden Globe acceptance speech in the style of Jane Austen's letters):

"Four A.M. Having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding, was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintances. Miss Lindsay Doran, of Mirage, wherever that might be, who is largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly apppeared to understand me better than I undersand myself. Mr. James Schamus, a copiously erudite gentleman, and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and a Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behavior one has lernt to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Canton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a vast deal of money. Miss Lisa Henson -- a lovely girl, and Mr. Gareth Wigan -- a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activitiy until eleven P.M. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due therefore not to the da ~ Emma Thompson

Lim Oh Kee kills himself in the early hours on the 12th day of December, 1921. His last meal is rice and nothing. ~ Evan Adam Ang

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

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

I don't like to deal with studios. ~ Ang Lee

I'm a shy human being. ~ Ang Lee

I'm still a novice student. ~ Ang Lee

Mahirap ngayon ang educational system. They're out for the degree, not knowledge. ~ Ambeth R. Ocampo

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. ~ Ang Lee

My father's family were liquidated during the Cultural Revolution in China because they were landowners. He was the only one to escape. I was born and brought up in Taiwan. But you absorb the trauma. My parents had no sense of security. ~ Ang Lee

San Francisco is one of my favourite cities in the world ... I would probably rank it at the top or near the top. It's small but photogenic and has layers ... You never have problems finding great angles that people have never done. ~ Ang Lee

I think, if allowed, 3D is a new film language. I can have more adventure exploring a new media, that's very exciting. 2D we know most of it, things haven't changed for decades; it's the same principles, so 3D's more exciting. ~ 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

Even dramatically how you position some person, the depth, the existence is different than a flat image even though by itself it has depth, we create the illusion of depth. For example, some of the shots I have to stay closer to the actor because it's a young actor, I like it closer for some of the shots. I watch 2D scenes next to the camera, then when I go back to my station and watch it in 3D I have to go back and reduce his acting, he has to shrink a little bit because he peeks out more. ~ Ang Lee

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. ~ Ang Lee

I think great romance needs great obstacles and textures. ~ Ang Lee

I hate to think life is just facts and laws. ~ Ang Lee

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

I think it[3D] should be used as a new artistic form, not as a gimmick, not to impress you but the existence of an environment that you view as a theatrical dramatic experience is - you don't just have the X-Y axis, you have the Z and that makes a difference. You still have the framing, you still use lenses, so most of the cinematic rules and languages still apply but I think it's a different existence. ~ 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 first show to the journalists, that was the first one, so I was very uptight. Then I felt okay about the reception because we did a press conference with good and friendly questions, although people looked serious. So really, after the show you went to - the premiere - that reception tells me I think the movie worked, so that was a relief. I started to feel deflated. ~ Ang Lee

Depending on the budget. I think I prefer 3D to 2D now. Also, because of 3D I have to use a digital camera, which is the way it's going anyway. That still confuses me, a digital camera versus film. ~ Ang Lee

I think I can work with any type of actor. ~ Ang Lee

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

What the hell happened to your leg?" Ang asked him.
Matt looked down at his shin, which was scraped and oozing and seemed to be caked in mud. "Crashed."
"Crashed what?" Ang asked.
"My mountain bike. We just got back."
"You crashed, then what? Rolled in dirt?"
He laughed. "Something like that actually. It's not a successful ride if you don't bleed." He must not have noticed the look of horror on my face, because he asked, suddenly enthusiastic, "You guys ride?"Angelo and I just looked at each other, and he seemed to realize that was a "no." "Too bad. Well, make yourselves at home. Beer's in the fridge. I have to get cleaned up. Kickoff's in ten minutes."
"Football?" Angelo asked.
Matt looked at his as if he had just asked if the sky was really blue. "Yeah! First game of the regular season!" We just stared blankly at him, and he just laughed and disappeared down the hall.
Angelo looked at me with a smile on his face. "Four fags watchin' football. Must be pretty fuckin' cold in hell right now. ~ Marie Sexton

Just being alive should make you late for everything. In case you've never noticed, the dead are always on time. ~ Arlene Ang

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

If the movie is quiet I generally feel the audience is busy. That's when they're working. ~ Ang Lee

And the PRCS [Palestinian Red Crescent Society] had not lost just one hospital: thirteen clinics and nine hospitals all over Lebanon had been destroyed in this way. Only Gaza Hospital, for a reason I was to discover three years later, was still standing. At the height of the air raids, when the Palestinians found out that every single PRCS hospital and clinic was a bomb target, they put three Israeli soldiers captured in south Lebanon on the upper floors of Gaza Hospital, and radioed a message to the Israeli Army saying that any further military action on Gaza Hospital would result in Israeli lives being lost. That saved Gaza Hospital from further destruction. ~ Ang Swee Chai

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

You have to know the rules, otherwise you have no tools to communicate to the audience, but to keep it fresh you have to break some. I don't choose genres as the element, but the material itself is the element, then I'll decide what genre I need. That's just how I work. ~ Ang Lee

It's just what I am. When I am in the zone making one movie, I just didn't want to read anything else or do anything else, so I don't really develop projects. ~ Ang Lee

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. ~ Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee just allowed me to make what we would call mistakes and had no judgment of them. He also empowered me. You know, he's like, "You're my actor. I chose you. Whatever you do is right." Right? "I made the decision, I'm complicit in choosing you. And I went through everything I could to choose you, so I feel good and whatever you're going to do I'm going to give you this space." And so it was very empowering. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal

There's always an intellectual side to the films Ang Lee's doing and to the characters, and there's such a deep knowledge when you've worked with the actors that he's worked with, on stage in particular, but also in film. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal

Beautifully-acted and precisely observed, ILO ILO is an amazing debut, full of heart and intelligence. ~ Ang Lee

When someone told me, 'Ang ganda mo' I answered 'Sana ikaw rin.' ~ Miriam Defensor Santiago

narrow-minded protectionism, ~ Ethan Ang

Quick dinner with ... Ang [Lee] and his wife Jane who's visiting with the children for a while. We talked about her work as a microbiologist and the behaviour of the epithingalingie under the influence of cholesterol. She's fascinated by cholesterol. Says it's very beautiful: bright yellow. She says Ang is wholly uninterested. He has no idea what she does.
I check this out for myself. 'What does Jane do?' I ask.
'Science,' he says vaguely. ~ Emma Thompson

People commit suicide for only one reason - to escape torment. ~ Li Ang

Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done. ~ Ang Lee

No matter how widely spread out the films are, how different, you still are you. ~ Ang Lee

I don't lead a Hollywood lifestyle. ~ Ang Lee

Dying is a universe of its own. ~ Arlene Ang

When you talk about God, the first thing that comes along is not love, it's fear. You have to fear, and be in awe. You have to be scared. Any religion, it's like first thing ... ~ Ang Lee

For six years, from 1985 to 1991, I felt pretty weak and useless. ~ Ang Lee

I'm aware of what's missing from my life. ~ Ang Lee

I was extremely shy of approaching my hero but he, as I found out, was sorely in need of company. By then almost completely blind, he was claustrated and even a little confused and this may help explain the rather shocking attitude that he took to the blunt trauma that was being inflicted in the streets and squares around him. 'This was my country and it might be yet,' he intoned to me when the topic first came up, as it had to: 'But something came between it and the sun.' This couplet he claimed (I have never been able to locate it) was from Edmund Blunden, whose gnarled hand I had been so excited to shake all those years ago, but it was not the Videla junta that Borges meant by the allusion. It was the pre-existing rule of Juan Perón, which he felt had depraved and corrupted Argentine society. I didn't disagree with this at all - and Perón had victimized Borges's mother and sister as well as having Borges himself fired from his job at the National Library - but it was nonetheless sad to hear the old man saying that he heartily preferred the new uniformed regime, as being one of 'gentlemen' as opposed to 'pimps.' This was a touch like listening to Evelyn Waugh at his most liverish and bufferish. (It was also partly redeemed by a piece of learned philology or etymology concerning the Buenos Aires dockside slang for pimp: canfinflero. 'A canfinfla, you see,' said Borges with perfect composure, 'is a pussy or more exactly a cunt. So a canfinflero is a trafficker in cunt: in Ang ~ Christopher Hitchens

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

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

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

But you don't hire Ang Lee to do a typical children's movie. But it's such an interesting combination, whoever thought of getting Ang together with a comic book, that was just great. ~ Dennis Muren

I had to test a new terror in myself. ~ Ang Lee

We are all from different cultures. Heath's [Ledger] Australian, really. I'm from here. Ang's [Lee] from China. But I think Ang gets very close in preproduction and rehearsals. And then he allows his actors - I don't think scared of actors, but I think he's scared of getting in on the scenes he's watching. The space he's watching. So he just totally disconnects from you while you're shooting. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal

An unhealthy life is destined to end with an unhealthy death. ~ Nancy S. Mure

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. ~ Ang Lee

Mother made sure her little kids were subjected to a strict routine. We were given a timetable which covered our every waking moment, copies of which were posted by our bedside, in the sitting room and in the kitchen. Story hour meant that mother would read us novels and short stories by Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde and Edmondo de Amicis. Soon we graduated to Tolstoy, Gogol and Turgenev. She read them to us in Chinese and I never realised until much later that the writers wrote them in different European languages. Comics were absolutely forbidden and so were Enid Blyton adventures and pop music ... Lee Cyn and I soon went to a primary school nearby ... After mother's rigorous timetable, school became fun and easy-going. ~ Ang Swee Chai

The fear factor actually brings the genuineness. ~ Ang Lee

One of the things that Ang brings to all of his projects is his deep sense of being a double exile, an outsider's outsider. ~ Larry McMurtry

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

With 3D you're right there immersed in the world. ~ Ang Lee

First we pre-visualized it so the actors could act. It took a long time to get that to come to life and to design those coming out of the screen. We had great fun with that. It takes a long time, a year maybe. ~ Ang Lee

When something possesses me, I go ahead and do it. ~ Ang Lee

When I'm not working, I get very down, but when I am working, I get very immersed in it. ~ Ang Lee

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. ~ Ang Lee

The hell I care with your flavor of the month?' Sabi ko. Yeah, yun yung girlfiend niya which I consider his flavor of the month. Or should I say, flavor of the week? Ang bilis niya kasing magpalit ng babae, well I'm the only exception! Hahaha!" - Arkisha ~ Ruth Mendoza

I just did a dramatic love story. Whether it's a cultural phenomenon is not for me to say. ~ 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

I did my 'Hulk,' but it was not easy. If I do another Hulk film it will always be compared to the Ang Lee thing, and my first one ... if I come back, I'd love to do another superhero, something different that I can really put my touch on. ~ Louis Leterrier

Edward finds Elinor crying for her dead father, offers her his handkerchief and their love story commences. Ang [Lee] very anxious that we think about what we want to do. I'm very anxious not to do anything and certainly not to think about it. ~ Emma Thompson

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

I'm not a romantic. In life I didn't have much experience with romance. ~ Ang Lee

We're in the real world na hindi uso ang forever at lahat may expiration date.. ~ Marcelo Santos III

What we do is bring out things that have been waylaid over time. Stories that have been forgotten. ~ Elbert Or

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

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

People are like stars in the Milky Way. There are millions of them. There are big, small, dead, and dying stars out there. Hindi ikaw ang nag-iisang bituin d'yan sa langit, kaya hindi sa'yo umiikot ang mundo. Puweding makinang ka ngayon, pero asahan mong parating may darating na mas makinang pa sa'yo. Malaki ang posibilidad na mawala sa'yo ang atensiyon ng iba, pero tandaan mo ang isang bagay.

"Whatever happens, you're still a star. There will still be people looking at you, admiring your beauty, and wishing for great things to happen to them with your help. You can't let them down, so you have to continue shining for them. You have to show them directions. That's what stars are for. ~ Luna King

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

Good & Evil struggled between us. It was all a matter of control. And choice. Nothing more ang nothing less. ~ Paulo Coelho

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

The thing that is so great about Ang Lee is the diversity in his filmmaking, from 'Brokeback ... ' to 'The Hulk.' ~ Sam Taylor-Johnson

I'm such a late bloomer. ~ Ang Lee

There's a certain time in the core of making a movie from pre-production to halfway through post-production I don't read any project, my agent will tell people that "he's not reading." And then when I know how the movie's probably gonna work halfway into post-production, I'll come along. ~ Ang Lee

I don't have incredible knowledge about films or of filmmaking history; I'm not that kind of person. ~ Ang Lee

I don't know if I make the best gay films. ~ Ang Lee

I had to find my way of translating the excitement you get when you're reading comic books to the big screen. ~ 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

'Brokeback Mountain' just blew me away. I'll always remember talking to Heath Ledger just after he finished that movie and he was going on about working with Ang and how incredible he was. ~ Emile Hirsch

In my culture, there's a tradition that when you're in an overwhelming situation and you don't know what to do, you put yourself in a woman's shoes. ~ Ang Lee

I'm a storyteller. ~ Ang Lee

I'm a big boy now, and I have to deliver. ~ Ang Lee

You're my best friend's kid sister, Ang. I've known you since you were eight." He ducked his head, dragged his hands through his hair with all the frustration winding through him. "Christ, if your brother finds out, he'll have my hide. ~ J.M. Stewart