Ai Weiwei Quotes

A nation that has no music and no fairytales is a tragedy.

To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.

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

Politics is like air and water. And you know if there is bad politics. Everyone is polluted. Everyone is unhealthy. See the people walking on the street: how they act.

I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.

In the end, I think, the state's rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.

The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.

Today, we jump into this globalization of the economy and the internet age.

These are nonviolent people who have lost their freedom simply because they expressed their ideas….In truth, they are heroes of our time.

The Internet changes the structure of society all the time — this massiveness made of individuals.

I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.

Even if I have hundreds of things to do, the disconnected feeling is still there because it is very hard to find a real purpose of life.

Overturning police cars is a super-intense workout. It’s probably the only sport I enjoy.

In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.

There are many cases and layers of racist behavior in the US - from police treatment to the issues of education and job opportunities. In America, however, such cases are being discussed publically.

I think of art as coming from daily life, daily experience. I think it's very important not to have it become work for some kind of elite circle.

I loved New York — every inch of it. It was a little bit scary at that time, but still, the excitement was so strong — visually and intellectually. It was like a monster.

Had I to create a name for these times, I’d say it is the age of craziness

When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That's dangerous for human development.

The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that.

We are living in a popular culture where everything is overexposed.

Warhol influenced me because of his writing. If I had never read his writings and interviews, I would never have understood his work.

Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much.

I saw [Allen Ginsberg] more as an old man who liked poetry and who had a lot of physical and emotional problems. We liked our time together.

This world should be much more open and should be much more free, so the young people would have the chance to exercise the quality of their lives.

I call on people to be 'obsessed citizens,' forever questioning and asking for accountability. That's the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.

As a human being, member of society, you must clearly state your mind. It's a responsibility. It is the way you identify yourself otherwise you don't know who you are and why you are here.

The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it...it's very disturbing.

...photographs are facts, but not necessarily true... The present always surpasses the past, and the future will not care about today.

Dictatorship is a story about death of others who turn out to be you coincidently.

Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.

I have to find a place for my own. I have to search for my own happiness.

I hope that my work expresses my worldview and encourages people to exchange ideas.

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

To the media, I have become a symbolic figure, critical of China. According to the government, I am a dangerous threat.

If I look at it, I would laugh. I don't know how I became successful.

This is a very general understanding of art in China, that being an artist can make you money and turn you into a star.

If civil society has nobody who protects the law, then what kind of society is that?

[Cultural department] understand nothing but bureaucratic daily affairs. They don't care about culture.

I think it's more important to show your work to the public.

Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.

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.

I don't think there is a distinct change, because in the West I'm not a person who can serve his purpose.

The practice of photography is no longer a means for recording reality. Instead, it has become reality itself

This so-called fame or being better off doesn't really attract me at all.

Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don’t feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy.

What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.

I'm totally independent. I don't bear any responsibility to any system.

Hopefully, other successes aren't like me. It carries much more meaning to other people; my success story is irrelevant. It doesn't make any sense.