Quotes from Ang Lee

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

My cultural roots are something illusive.

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 think a lot of people do big movies not because they are talented artists but because they can function in the circumstances.

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

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.

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

I think I prefer 3D to 2D now.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Summer blockbusters are very expensive to make. They have things that have to be expensive, such as 600 effects shots or CG characters that have to go a certain way, or a film design that is different but expensive.

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

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.

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.

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.

The fear factor actually brings the genuineness.

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

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

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.