“For years, I refused to go to any openings, not even my own.”

The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for a society’s level of civilization.

I think you can give meaning to any condition; you can be poor or unsuccessful or be so-called successful. But I don’t think that it would give an individual human being a better condition.

I’m doing quite a few things now. In one day, I will go to Kassel, Germany, for a documentary project I’ve been preparing for half a year.

I don’t believe in a sense of home.

The deadly weapon against totalitarian society is openness – doing everything very openly on the Internet, letting people know every detail, any little development. Once it is out there, everybody can make their own judgement.

Paintings can be painted with the left hand, the right hand, someone else’s hand, or many people’s hands. The scale of production is irrelevant to its content.

We should use this public sphere and redefine – beyond China’s borders – what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen’s privacy begins.

…photographs are facts, but not necessarily true… The present always surpasses the past, and the future will not care about today.

There are no outdoor sports as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.

If I really have nothing to do, I just watch my cats, take some photos, and go back to my personal blog.

It’s really rubbish that some kind of “technical” learning means you will be a better person because you know this skill better.

The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.

And who is going to win the competition if U.S. cannot hold a strong ideology? And even the U.S. would’ve lost the ground to win.

This so-called fame or being better off doesn’t really attract me at all.

Otherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.

China is at a different stage of development, human rights are violated here much more often. And still, we see improvements even here.

The opening of the doors to 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians is going to become a huge issue.

I just fight like myself. I’m like a cat – if I see the opening, I’m going to shoot for it. I think what stands out is my accuracy.

Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China’s society is opening.

I really like Katy Perry and the music she does. She’s an amazing musician and it’s an honour to be opening for her in London.

I think this is a moment of a lot of possibilities, and openings. Occupy and the 99% movement are really going to break through, and we are going to create a new economy.

As I often tell my students, the person you’ll have the hardest time opening to and truly loving without reserve is yourself. Once you can do that, you can love the whole universe unconditionally.

Because they wanted a sympathetic ally in power. So I think it really was the opening act of World War II.

Our first idea is a grand opening, a big launch, a press release, or major media coverage. We default to thinking we need an advertising budget. Our delusion is that we should be Transformers and not The Blair Witch Project.