I never really read Allen Ginsberg poetry, even though I have a book he gave me.
AI WEIWEITo work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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Creativity is the power to act.
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The whole attitude of society has become much more open and realistic. They realize that the only way to make a more democratic and free society is to let different opinions come out.
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The purpose of art is the fight for freedom.
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There isn’t a single Chinese university that can invite me to give a talk. Even though I know there are many students who would like to hear what I have to say.
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In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.
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I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
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For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.
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That’s why I always question this sense. The feeling of home really requires a lot of trust. It requires you to identify with it, which I always find myself very contradictory to.
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A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy.
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You’re still being looked at as somebody who – it’s a very complicated issue.
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The motivation is really to say people can find the game of getting involved interesting and find the problem and really have the passion and the enthusiasm to solve it and move forward, but that’s all I know.
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Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.
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If I really have nothing to do, I just watch my cats, take some photos, and go back to my personal blog.
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I think China is laughing about the results of the presidential elections. China, Russia, they all laugh about it.
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The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it…it’s very disturbing.
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The people will always have the last word – even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.
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Politics is like air and water. And you know if there is bad politics. Everyone is polluted. Everyone is unhealthy. See the people walking on the street: how they act.
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Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.
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I don’t think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism.
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It [success] is really by mistake.
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A nation like China has become one of the biggest production fields for exporting cheap labor, which also re-questions our history and past, re-questions human desire, and the human illusions of the past.
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I never had secure, belonging feelings with this society [in China].
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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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.
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People who can’t do that don’t get a sense of responsibility. And if you lack a sense of responsibility, you push the blame onto the system.
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Society becomes very destructive.
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