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

The jobs for 7 million university graduates every year, the immense corruption: Even some Western governments would have to scramble to find solutions to such problems.

Choices after waking up: To be true or to lie? To take action or be brainwashed? To be free or be jailed?

No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.

There’s no such thing as “fixed” culture. China is also becoming more global. Its problems are becoming international problems, becoming German problems, becoming American problems.

It also makes humanity much more safe. If we see pureness somewhere as something to be desired, the trouble starts.

I never think any place is better than others.

Society becomes very destructive.

Creativity is the power to act.

We are not on – even just a step away from the most brutal and primitive crudity. To be very crude on those issues, which is always challenges and we always have to look at the situation like a mirror, to draw some understanding.

It’s not really an ideology, but a method of control. But China’s problems are not just China’s problems – they’re human problems. Humanity has always worked better when you see it as one.

Selling high or low doesn’t mean anything. It has to do purely with the market.

Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people.

Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.

Every day I’m learning something new from the practice. It’s very rewarding.

For those actors and directors who produce films which are always about the old kingdom or about heroes.

There may be a brighter star. But through my eyes the light of you is all I see.

You little star that shines so bright you make the whole sky look glorious from a million miles away.

I don’t want to be an action star, an action star’s life is so short. I want my life to get longer, I want my career to get longer.

Stars and blossoming fruit-trees: utter permanence and extreme fragility give an equal sense of eternity.

I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance.

Reach Up Your Hand… and take a star.

You do not become a star, you are born a star. A star is born with that indefinable extra something.

I’m a rock star because I couldn’t be a soccer star.