“It’s the place they take you before they give you over to the judicial system. You stay there for a year or two and they make you really suffer to confess everything.”

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.

You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.

I think optimism is whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are curious, whether you still believe there is possibility.

It [success] is really by mistake.

Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I’m not nostalgic about the old city. I don’t enjoy it that much.

Technology is a liberation. I think the information age probably is the best thing to happen to the human race in human evolution.

Of course, there [in China] has to be chaos. It has to be crazy, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it except this government, which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful.

This so-called contemporary art is not a form, but a philosophy of society.

If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.

Taste goodness before you recommend it.

If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.

I pray before I go into the operating room for every case, and I ask him to give me wisdom, to help me to know what to do – and not only for operating, but for everything.

The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.

A fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he’s already got. He’ll cling to trouble he’s used to before he’ll risk a change.

I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.

Success is feminine and like a woman, if you cringe before her, she will override you