My parents lived likeas the neighbours described thema pair of chopsticks, always in harmony.

If one wants to get a boat ride, one must be near the river.

lack of will power leads to more failure than lack of intelligence or ability.

We were meant to survive because of our minds' ability to reason, our ability to live with frustration in order to maintain our virtue. We wore smiling masks while dying inside.

If you can't go back to your mother's womb, you'd better learn to be a good fighter.

There have been 50 or 60 books written about Empress Orchid, but none of them bothered to really examine the period in China when she lived. I was taught that she was evil; it's in all the textbooks.

I think about giving up. I almost do.

I was happy not to be in his place. He could command my death, but not his. But then, what kind of power was his? He was a prisoner of himself.

The sun doesn't just hang on one family's tree

When Chinese get together - what's buried stays buried. We don't even discuss our embarrassing early days struggling in Chicago.

The self was a very strange concept to me until I came to America, and my child was born with that entitlement, and that just thrilled me.

Receptive prayer is one of the most powerful weapons against spiritual u-turns.

I swear to God, I don't remember anything Gwyneth Paltrow was in. Some people get hot by association. I heard more about her and Brad Pitt and I ever heard about her work.

I respect hippos. They just look the way they do; they can't do anything about it, but they don't seem bothered.

Create a vision and never let the environment, other people's beliefs, or the limits of what has been done in the past shape your decisions. Ignore conventional wisdom.

We've got to stop thinking everybody who is Muslim is a terrorist.

I can be quite daring with my clothes but I believe that you have to feel comfortable and confident to carry off whatever it is you're wearing.

I've always considered myself a filmmaker who writes stuff for himself to do.

and I circle ten thousand years long; And I still don't know if I'm a falcon, a storm, or an unfinished song

You proclaim that one should die for the highest virtues, because you take it for granted that nobody's been living for them, not even for a single hour.

If you asked me to write a rock song or a rap song, I couldn't do it because they're not in my fingers.