“You don’t have to march on Tiananmen, but you do have to be clear-minded, to find your own means of expression.”

There’s no such thing as “fixed” culture. China is also becoming more global. Its problems are becoming international problems, becoming German problems, becoming American problems.

It also makes humanity much more safe. If we see pureness somewhere as something to be desired, the trouble starts.

I never think any place is better than others.

Society becomes very destructive.

Creativity is the power to act.

We are not on – even just a step away from the most brutal and primitive crudity. To be very crude on those issues, which is always challenges and we always have to look at the situation like a mirror, to draw some understanding.

It’s not really an ideology, but a method of control. But China’s problems are not just China’s problems – they’re human problems. Humanity has always worked better when you see it as one.

Selling high or low doesn’t mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.

Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people.

Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.

Every day I’m learning something new from the practice. It’s very rewarding.

For those actors and directors who produce films which are always about the old kingdom or about heroes.

For me, it is OK as long as I can breathe, as long as my heart is pumping, as long as I can express myself.

In the end, I think, the state’s rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.

When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.