Many people are going to use [Beijing National Stadium], which makes it more meaningful. If we don't design it, somebody else has to design it.

I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.

If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter.

To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling. It is to wonder about the world, to understand the nature of people and, most importantly, to be shared with another, old or young, known or unknown.

A small act is worth a million thoughts.

Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something.

At the moment about 350,000 students return to China from abroad each year - 350,000 young and educated people. I know about them because they know me and often ask me in the street if they can take a selfie with me. These folks are creative and ironic, and the government can ultimately not control what is going on in their heads.