Ang'ring Quotes

#1. Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Ang'ring itself and others.

William Shakespeare

#2. Some actors give you what you want. Some you have to make do what you want.

Ang Lee

#3. I'm a shy human being.

Ang Lee

#4. I'm not a romantic. In life I didn't have much experience with romance.

Ang Lee

#5. 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

#6. What we do is bring out things that have been waylaid over time. Stories that have been forgotten.

Elbert Or

#7. My daily activities are not unusual -
I am just naturally in harmony with them,
Grasping nothing, discarding nothing,
And everyplace there's no hindrance, no conflict.
My supernatural power and marvelous activity
Is drawing water and carrying firewood.

Yun P'ang

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

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#10. 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

#11. 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.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#13. The opportunity, number one, to work with Ang Lee is an amazing thing for me.

Sam Elliott

#14. 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.

Ang Lee

#15. 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

#16. 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.

Ang Lee

#17. My culture doesn't regard acting highly.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#19. 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

#20. 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

#21. 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

#22. I'm just a pretty regular dad.

Ang Lee

#23. Things that don't have a big impact seem to be crucial. Always when you go out to make a movie you have questions, "What if this doesn't work? What if that doesn't work?" you want to cover yourself, you want to bring back enough [footage] so you can do something.

Ang Lee

#24. I was very quiet, very shy and docile.

Ang Lee

#25. Film study was considered disgraceful by my father.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#28. I don't care about writing really.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#30. It's one of the most beautiful scripts [Brokeback Mountain] I've ever read, and it was Ang Lee, and at the time Heath [Ledger] was a friend of mine - before we even shot the movie - and always sort of alluring to me.

Jake Gyllenhaal

#31. 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

#32. The ship continues to sail further from our mother land, and I continue to want to be with you, wherever and however that may be.

Elbert Or

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

Ang Lee

#34. My mother loves me and everything goes well. I have no conflict with her, so that's not dramatic.

Ang Lee

#35. 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.

Ang Lee

#36. Sense and Sensibility signs litter Devon
arrows with S & S on. Whenever Ang [Lee] sees a B & B sign he thinks it's for another movie.

Emma Thompson

#37. 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

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

Ang Lee

#39. I think I can work with any type of actor.

Ang Lee

#40. 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

#41. I think great romance needs great obstacles and textures.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#43. 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

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

Ang Lee

#45. What is really a stretch to me is to make quick decisions.

Ang Lee

#46. We will pick our way through the shards of broken objects folly leaves behind. And some of what breaks will be very beautiful.

Guy Gavriel Kay

#47. I like to think I'm un-categorisable.

Ang Lee

#48. 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

#49. If the movie is quiet I generally feel the audience is busy. That's when they're working.

Ang Lee

#50. For six years, from 1985 to 1991, I felt pretty weak and useless.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#52. When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write.

Ang Lee

#53. I'm aware of what's missing from my life.

Ang Lee

#54. Economically, it's more expensive to make movies. I hope digital movies change that.

Ang Lee

#55. I don't lead a Hollywood lifestyle.

Ang Lee

#56. 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

#57. 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

#58. As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#60. I try to please everyone.

Ang Lee

#61. 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.

Ang Lee

#62. 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

#63. My hometown was one of the major U.S. Air Force bases.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#67. narrow-minded protectionism,

Ethan Ang

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

Ang Lee

#69. Look at the people who are coming to television Ridley Scott, Ang Lee or Guillermo del Toro - all these great filmmakers - actively put themselves back into TV. That's because the environment is very encouraging for bold storytelling, storytelling that you've never seen before.

Ron Perlman

#70. Other times you can get showy for three minutes, and that's OK with certain films. But that isn't right with an Ang Lee movie, you have to fit right in. You have to understand Ang, respect him and be part of the team and not be in charge of it - he is in charge of it.

Dennis Muren

#71. You are worth every minute I have ever spent with you! More than that!

Stylo Fantome

#72. Jelle, if you really love Guji, you'd be willing to let him go and allow him to be happy with the woman he loves. Walang problema kung nais mong ipaglaban ang feelings mo pero dapat alam mo rin kung paano sumuko lalo na kung alam mong talo ka na.

Marione Ashley

#73. You can use martial arts to tell a different story. Ang Lee used martial arts in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' to talk about love.

Jet Li

#74. 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.

Ang Lee

#75. I think people are universal.

Ang Lee

#76. You can get rich or famous by doing the same thing.

Ang Lee

#77. I hate to think life is just facts and laws.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee

#79. We need storytelling. Otherwise life just goes on and on, like the number Pi.

Ang Lee

#80. 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

#81. We were talking about the kissing in the movie just recently. Clearly, it's pretty challenging material, but Ang said two men herding sheep was far more sexual than two men having sex on screen.

Jake Gyllenhaal

#82. 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

#83. You become the movie you are making.

Ang Lee

#84. 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.

Ang Lee

#85. I'm actually living my life with the material I choose to work with.

Ang Lee

#86. After making several tragic movies in a row, I was looking to do a comedy, and one without cynicism.

Ang Lee

#87. it's only through taking risks that success can be found.

Jamie Bautista

#88. American films are less American every day, because you have to please a world audience. There's less authenticity, so it's more accessible.

Ang Lee

#89. I'm such a late bloomer.

Ang Lee

#90. 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

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

Ang Lee

#92. I'm not Ang Lee who knows so much about western market and the taste of western audiences.

Zhang Yimou

#93. 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

#94. 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

#95. I don't have a superpower.

Ang Lee

#96. I think Ang Lee is a very, very talented director. He used martial arts to talk about love and girl, you know ... But Zhang Yimou tried to use martial arts film to talk about Chinese culture, Chinese people. What do they think, what do they want and what do they hope the world will become.

Jet Li

#97. 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

#98. 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

#99. I'm still a novice student.

Ang Lee

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

Ang Lee