It's not that I wanted to be an actor; it's that I didn't want to be a dancer! I was trained in traditional Chinese dance, and after working so hard it seemed unfair to just disappear into a group.

I wanted to become a kindergarten teacher like my mother.

In China, we don't consider someone truly beautiful until we have known them for a long time, and we know what's underneath the skin.

For myself I don't like the geisha look. It's like a mask.

There's nothing in Chinese culture that is an equivalent of the geisha. It's so different, so special to Japan.

I want, through my roles, to express the parts in the hearts of Chinese women that they feel unable to let out.

I don't care if you love me or not. I'll love you anyway.

The atmosphere at my school was very competitive. Young girls were competing with each other every day for status, for leadership, for the affection of the teachers. I hated it.

I'm not really interested in politics, because I think it's just too removed from my own life. If there's a war, though, or a disaster, I want to know what's happening.

Actually I ran away from school when I was 13. No one could find me, and the police were called. I was just hiding in a little thicket of grass at my school, and went to sleep.

I wanted to escape so badly. But of course I knew I couldn't just give up and leave school. It was only when I heard my mom's voice that I came out of my hiding place.

Philosophy is not a spectator sport.

I suppose all of my films have a common theme. If I think about it, though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why can’t people be happier together?

Life is all about balance: sprinting hard and fast, breathing deep and slow. Working out with my coaches, playing with my kids. Eating whole foods for fuel, enjoying a glass of wine with friends.

There will be strange ebbs and flows in the tide of race feelings.

If it's hard to remember, it'll be difficult to forget.

Tomorrow never really comes, so todays performance is what really counts.

Even now, nature is the only flame, on which the poetic spirit feeds; from it alone it draws all its power, to it alone it speaks even in the artificial, in the man engaged in culture.

Just be real with yourself right now. We beat ourself.

You have stripped from me the rank and privileges of the professorship and the doctoral degree which I earned, and you have set me at the level of the lowest criminal.

If you want to attract the coolest man in the world become the coolest woman in the world.