“I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.”

I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.

We have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.

Your own acts tell the world who you are and what kind of society you think it should be.

I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.

Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.

Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don’t feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy.

Any individual can contribute its own belief. And our society or even our government are made by the people. The people would have the final voice, but it requires each individual to act. If we don’t act, then the result is very clear.

I saw [Allen Ginsberg] more as an old man who liked poetry and who had a lot of physical and emotional problems. We liked our time together.

These are nonviolent people who have lost their freedom simply because they expressed their ideas….In truth, they are heroes of our time.

I will bring 1,001 Chinese to participate as my artwork there – any Chinese who is a Chinese passport holder and over eighteen years old could apply through my blog.

Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.

I don’t think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism.

Chinese government is very clearly losing power in every aspect, but trying to fix up all the problems or potential problems.

The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.

You can never know what is and what is not powerful, but you can always find out what the powerful people are scared of.

I’m an artist who is always looking for what is possible. I’m always looking to extend the boundaries.

Look at you, you madman! Screaming you are thirsty and dying in a desert, when all around you there is nothing but water!

When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.

They make a desert and call it peace.

Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.

As our Father makes many a flower to bloom unseen in the lonely desert, [let us] do all that we can do, as under God’s eye, though no other eye ever take note of it.

The deity who stalked the deserts of the Middle East millennia ago-and who seems to have abandoned them to bloodshed in his name ever since-is no one to consult on questions of ethics.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

Not everyone knows what to do when they come across a snowflake in the desert.