“I think my stance and my way of life is my most important art.”

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.

I wouldn’t say I’ve become more radical: I was born radical.

I call on people to be ‘obsessed citizens,’ forever questioning and asking for accountability. That’s the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.

What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.

The [China] government has improved in the last years. Of course, the structure is still the same; there’s still a one-party system and strong censorship.

Now many enterprises are made by individuals, so the attitude has started to change.

The whole Chinese system – not just the political leadership, the military too, the whole power structure, our education system, the whole of society – is suffering from being cut off from the free flow of information.

I lived there [ in New York City] as an artist, but never as a Chinese artist.

First impressions are always the most important.

I’ve been playing music most of my life.

Protein was the most valued ingredient 250 years ago: It was the rarest thing. Now the rarest thing we have is time: time to cook and time to eat.

Even [Ernst] Hemingway, perhaps the most intentionally non-political of American writers, became passionately partisan during the Spanish Civil War.

The most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed.

I love travelling, and had the pleasure of being in the most developed country in the world and then parts of two of the most pristine natural areas of the world: the Galapagos islands and the Equador Amazon jungle.

As soon as you lay down, that’s when the most bizarre things start coming out of her mouth. ‘Goodnight, baby.’ ‘Do you think we were together in a past life?’ ‘Yeah, and I died of sleep deprivation. Go to bed.’ ‘Don’t you feel like we’re soul…’

Really living without clutter takes an iron will … This involves eternal watchfulness and that oldest and most relentless of the housewife’s occupations, picking up.