“Even though everybody who looked at me would call me a Chinese artist, that’s the 1980s. New York in the ’80s was not so interesting.”

Censorship is saying: “I’m the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine.” But the internet is like a tree that is growing.

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

To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling.

Many people are going to use [Beijing National Stadium], which makes it more meaningful. If we don’t design it, somebody else has to design it.

Of course, people will call you an old artist or young artist, which is just a character of you.

I think it’s quite narrow-minded. There wasn’t much encouragement or opportunities for any artist – not just Chinese artists.

Behind every political deal in this country, the first casualties are always the ordinary people, who are barely treated as human.

Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market.

Everything is art. Everything is politics.

[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don’t care about culture.

Even today the borders they’re seeing the physical borders are very different from the political borders. Because all those powers are so connected, and you cannot even see whose interest in what move.

In my case, I was stuck there for quite a while. New York is large enough to be a very abstract city, so nobody cares.

The importance of elections, transparency, legal procedures, an independent army, and the judicial system is not regarded as highly in China. These core values are the most important evidence of the health of a society, quality of life, and security.

It’s just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.

We should also leave behind discrimination, because it is narrow-minded and ignorant, denies contact and warmth; and corrodes mankind’s belief that we can better ourselves.

Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one’s imagination – perhaps more importantly – creativity is the power to act.

When the New York Times revealed the warrantless surveillance of voice calls, in December 2005, the telephone companies got nervous.

I feel like people just let each other live a little more in New York.

You need fighters like me to battle, because frankly

I lived there [ in New York City] as an artist, but never as a Chinese artist.

I grew up about 60 miles northwest of New York, in Middletown, NY.

In America, people think being South Asian is still kind of exotic. When you go outside New York and Chicago and L.A., there are people who have never tried Indian food… they’ve never even tasted it!

When you’re on the subway in New York, people literally could be 11-inches away from you, and you can’t just stare at them.

I often feel that my days in New York City, that I was here for five years, didn’t get one job, went on a thousands of auditions and literally did not get a job on a soap, not a movie, not TV, not nothing, although I did do some commercials thank God.