Top 100 Ang Lee Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “We need storytelling. Otherwise life just goes on and on, like the number Pi.”

— Ang Lee

2. “Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done.”

— Ang Lee

3. “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.”

— Ang Lee

4. “With 3D you’re right there immersed in the world.”

— Ang Lee

5. “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

6. “I’m a drifter and an outsider. There’s not one single environment I can totally belong to.”

— Ang Lee

7. “I make movies for a long time. It doesn’t get easier.”

— Ang Lee

8. “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

9. “I’m a big boy now, and I have to deliver.”

— Ang Lee

10. “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.”

— Ang Lee

11. “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

12. “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

13. “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

14. “Every movie I make, that’s my hideout, the place I don’t quite understand but feel most at home.”

— Ang Lee

15. “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

16. “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

17. “A movie is really provocation. It’s not a message, it’s not a statement.”

— Ang Lee

18. “My cultural roots are something illusive.”

— Ang Lee

19. “I grew up pretty much prevented from knowing anything from Communist China except that they were the bad guys that stole our country.”

— Ang Lee

20. “I find it hard to deliver straightforward things.”

— Ang Lee

21. “I think a movie is a media that is evoking feelings.”

— Ang Lee

22. “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

23. “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

24. “Sensitivity and money are like parallel lines. They don’t meet.”

— Ang Lee

25. “Beautifully-acted and precisely observed, ILO ILO is an amazing debut, full of heart and intelligence.”

— Ang Lee

26. “I’m aware of what’s missing from my life.”

— Ang Lee

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

— Ang Lee

28. “As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.”

— Ang Lee

29. “I like to go back to Chinese film-making from time to time. I don’t think I can make Chinese films back to back; it’s such a big effort. I’d have to take a very long break.”

— Ang Lee

30. “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

31. “I’m not a romantic. In life I didn’t have much experience with romance.”

— Ang Lee

Featured in: Romance Quotes

32. “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

33. “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

34. “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

35. “Making a martial arts film in English to me is the same as John Wayne speaking Chinese in a western.”

— Ang Lee

36. “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

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

— Ang Lee

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

— Ang Lee

39. “Americans are hidden dragons to me.”

— Ang Lee

40. “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.”

— Ang Lee

41. “Kids don’t even read comic books anymore. They’ve got more important things to do – like video games.”

— Ang Lee

42. “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

43. “The fear factor actually brings the genuineness.”

— Ang Lee

44. “When there is a strong woman character in a story – that always grabs me.”

— Ang Lee

45. “No matter how widely spread out the films are, how different, you still are you.”

— Ang Lee

46. “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

47. “I don’t like to deal with studios.”

— Ang Lee

48. “For a filmmaker, it’s a rare chance to do a personal film on a big canvas.”

— Ang Lee

49. “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

50. “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