“I think everyone sees beauty. Art is a way to respond”

Fulfill your potential. That’s the way to happiness.

I used to meditate until I learned to stop thinking.

Beauty and happiness and life are all the same and they are pervasive, unattached and abstract and they are our only concern.

Anything can be painted without representation.

It’s not about facts, it’s about feelings. It’s about remembering feelings and happiness.

There’s not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think.

I paint with my back to the world

When you look in your mind you find it covered with a lot of rubbishy thoughts.

Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it …. as you would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean.

There’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall …. Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting.

Inspiration is there all the time. For everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts whether they realize it or not.

A definition of art is that it makes concrete our most subtle emotions. I think the highest form of art is music. It’s the most abstract of all art expression.

The artist works by awareness of his own state of mind.

I often paint tranquility. If you stop thinking and rest, then a little happiness comes into your mind. At perfect rest you are comfortable.

One must see the ideal in one’s own mind. It is like a memory – an awareness -of perfection.

I think our minds respond to things beyond this world. Take beauty: it’s a very mysterious thing, isn’t it?

Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way they did, because he was embodied by his music.

I always want to design a frame that’s open to everyone. I don’t see art as a secret code.

I think the government regrets having Sina Weibo, but they cannot shut it down. That would definitely be suicidal.

Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it’s not a product; it’s an understanding of human nature.

What everyone underestimated was the acute unpopularity of the Taliban, even in the Pashtun areas.

What we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy.

Inspiration is there all the time. For everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts whether they realize it or not.

That doesn’t happen with a lot of genres. If you go to a hip-hop club, it’s not like when one songs comes on that everyone suddenly loves each other.