My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions.
Maya LinRead
I though about what death is, what a loss is. A sharp pain that lessens with time, but can never quite heal over. A scar. The idea occurred to me there on the site. Take a knife and cut open the earth, and with time the grass would heal it. As if you cut open the rock and polished it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the enduring nature of grief and the healing process over time.
Maya Lin's quote contemplates the concept of loss and how it manifests as a lasting pain that transforms but never fully disappears. The metaphor of cutting the earth and observing its eventual healing suggests that while scars from loss remain, there is a natural process of recovery that allows life to continue and flourish despite the pain.
Themes
LossGriefHealingPainScarNature
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about overcoming personal challenges, one might reference this quote to illustrate the persistence of grief.
More from Maya Lin
All quotes →I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me.
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How we are using up our home, how we are living and polluting the planet is frightening. It was evident when I was a child. It's more evident now.
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Sometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field.
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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.
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When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business.
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