I never felt like a Chinese citizen because I was pushed away at a very young age. My father, a writer, was a national enemy of the Communist Party. He was forbidden to write for 20 years. We literally lived underground. We dug a hole and lived there for years. My father cleaned public toilets, even though he was a highly respected poet. Nationality and borders are barriers to our intelligence, to our imagination and to all kinds of possibilities.

Life is never guaranteed to be safe, so we better use it while we are still in good condition.

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.

In my life, I often make so-called major decisions by very quick, immediate responses.

I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn't move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.

It doesn't matter where I am - China will stay in me. I don't know how far I can still walk on this road and what is the limit.

The society was so different [in China] - it was a feudalistic society. It didn't come to a point of industrial revolution until twenty years ago.