Ai Weiwei Quotes

Creativity is part of human nature. It can only be untaught.

It’s really life and death [not art].When they tell you your mother is 80 years old but you cannot see her again, you can never call it performance art. Or when your son is three, and they tell you that when you are released he will be in his teens and can never recognize you as a father. You feel terrible inside, to lose those chances. Each day, they tell you, 'You will spend your life day after day the same, minute after minute the same. You just have to pay [with] your life for this kind of so-called freedom that you are fighting for.' There is no sense of justice there. Why do I have to do this with them? Why do I have to argue or play this game?"

The frustration mainly comes from trying to understand what they really want. Also, you cannot understand how can such a large nation maintain its so-called stability by doing something very unlawful. I mean, how can they possibly manage to stabilize the whole social condition by not [acting with] justice and fairness.

I have the responsibility to let the people know what happened to me, and did I commit the crime or if I didn’t, what is the real accusation? Why am I in this condition today? I think it reflects our human condition in this piece of land, and if I don’t bear some responsibility . . . . many, many people, their voice can never be heard.

I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.

You know, if they can do this to me they can do this to anybody, and they have been doing this for over sixty years . . . . it’s a very strange world.

Once you’ve tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country.

I’m so fearful, that’s not fearless... I act more brave because I know the danger’s really there. If you don’t act, the danger becomes stronger.

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

Stupidity can win for a moment, but it can never really succeed because the nature of humans is to seek freedom. Rulers can delay that freedom, but they cannot stop it.

Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.

They know too many things they should not know and they do not know some things they need to know.

[My family] suffer so much. My mother was much older when I came out [of detention]. She had problems with her hearing and high blood pressure. But they still support me. When you make somebody disappear and you don’t announce it to the family, what is this? You make people desperate and bring them close to death. If our cat or dog is lost, it makes us desperately want to know where it is—so for humans disappearing, you can barely imagine the pain. What kind of society is this? If a society cannot even support somebody like me, then people ask: Who is under protection, then? That’s why there is such support for me. It is not because I am so beautiful or so charming. People feel, This guy is fighting for us.

The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.

The government computer has one button: delete.