Everyone thinks the Chinese government selected me. Never ever. I was selected by Herzog and de Meuron.

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

A small act is worth a million thoughts.

Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.

The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.

The world is not changing if you don’t shoulder the burden of responsibility.

Maybe being powerful means to be fragile.

Everything is art. Everything is politics.

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.

I think optimism is whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are curious, whether you still believe there is possibility.

The purpose of art is the fight for freedom.

As for biblical or religious theory, I don’t ever want to fight about the details of the story, I want to live the reality of the message.

What if the greatest love story ever told was the wrong one?

When push comes to shove we can afford to lose an arm or a leg, but I am operating on peoples thoughts and feelings... and if something goes wrong I can destroy that persons character... forever.

I call architecture frozen music.

The swine who stole my dog doesn't realize what he did to me!

Writing fiction takes me out of time. I sit down and the clock will not exist for me for a few hours. That’s probably as close to immortal as we’ll ever get.

Writing well is the best revenge.

Sometimes you have to be apart from people you love, but that doesn't make you love them any less. Sometimes you love them more.

When you got a demand issue it's hard to imagine the stock market at an all-time high.

Where I'm from is like 'Hustle Flow' versus '8 Mile.' It's that really grimy, box-Chevy, dope-boy, working-class music.