“A few thousand are to be built in the next few years, all using taxpayer money. But there is no system, no research, no content, no good programs, no good managers.”

I never had a sense of home.

I deal with students every day – from China, Germany, the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And I’ve noticed that the Chinese students are the least trained in having a sense of aesthetics.

I loved New York — every inch of it. It was a little bit scary at that time, but still, the excitement was so strong — visually and intellectually. It was like a monster.

The only way to avoid misunderstanding, war and bloodshed is to defend freedom of expression and to communicate with sincerity, concern and good intentions.

I think to deal with the situation like human crisis, 65 million people being displaced, lost their home, and with such human tragedy, has to make every level of society to be conscious and to be alert about the situation.

I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.

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.

Now I’ve come to such a mixed culture: America, Europe, South America, Africa. And the politics are changing everywhere all the time and becoming even more unpredictable.

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

This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.

To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects.

If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future.

If a master, a wise and experienced man, wields a great weapon, that’s beautiful. He can serve peace with it. But if someone’s emotions are imbalanced, even if he has the best equipment,

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.

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

Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.

A healthy relationship is built on unwavering trust.

When you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth.

Built God a church and laughed His word to scorn.

In the heavens we discover [stars] by their light, and by their light alone … the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds … that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds we find on earth.

The Titanic was built by professionals. The Ark was built by volunteers.

[Donald Trump] went on to, you know, otherize Muslims, otherize Latinos, otherize women, that he built out from that. And it can be true that a unique, you know, individual like Barack Obama can succeed in spite of that and still be the case that that force is quite, quite strong.

We’ve built six schools in Colombia and do work in South Africa and Haiti. We teach 5,000 students.

Society is built on marriage … marriage and its consequences.