Ai Weiwei Quotes

We see plenty of artistic work that reflects superficial social conditions, but very little work that questions fundamental values.

Ai Weiwei

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Quotes to Explore

• When I started out back in Louisville, there was Harry Collins. He was my first teacher. He saw that I was so obsessed with magic that he taught me the love of magic.

  

  Lance Burton
  • Love
  • Teacher
  • Magic

• I think that as you grow up, as you get older, we can't get bitter, we can't get jaded.

  

  Taylor Swift
  • Up
  • Think
  • Grow

• I identified in a very deep way with the individuals I was writing about because the theme that runs through this story is of extraordinary hardship and the will to overcome it.

  

  Laura Hillenbrand
  • Writing
  • Deep
  • Story

• I went to this little performing arts school in downtown Phoenix. You had to dance or act, and everyone sang in choir. I started out playing the saxophone, but I always wanted to be in an orchestra. That was a dream as a kid, and there aren't a lot of saxophones in an orchestra.

  

  Kacy Hill
  • School
  • Dream
  • Dance

• I know you can be up one minute and drop the next, so I'm trying to maintain a steady course so I can have some longevity.

  

  Orlando Bloom
  • Up
  • Trying
  • Know

• Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is unlike the others because you are not bringing the same voice to every book. I think that keeps you alive as a writer.

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Book
  • Voice
  • Identity

• The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism.

  

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  • Job
  • Best
  • Philosophy

• If you live in rock and roll, as I do, you see the reality of sex, of male lust and women being aroused by male lust. It attracts women. It doesn't repel them.

  

  Camille Paglia
  • Live
  • Women
  • Reality

• No 27-year-old has the experience to run a company that does a quarter of a billion dollars a year in sales.

  

  Calvin Klein
  • Experience
  • Year
  • Sales

• I am a contradiction myself. I'm always looking for something that scares me because when I'm not scared, I'm not stimulated.

  

  Yasmine Al Masri
  • Contradiction
  • Scares
  • Stimulated

• I pick up the details that drive the organization insane. But sweating the details is more important than anything else.

  

  Indra Nooyi
  • Up
  • Important
  • Organization

• The Sino-Indian War in 1962 has fundamentally shaped and distorted Indian attitudes towards China. It also obscured a great deal of what has happened in China since 1962.

  

  Pankaj Mishra
  • Great
  • War
  • China

• I have a very rich and wonderful personal life, and at its core are my sons.

  

  Kate Mulgrew
  • Life
  • Rich
  • Personal

• Half the time, people will be abusing me on Twitter, and half the time, somebody will be praising me. So either it will go to my head, or I will take it to my heart. So better I stay away from it.

  

  Ranbir Kapoor
  • People
  • Time
  • Heart

• If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.

  

  Viktor E. Frankl
  • Life
  • Death
  • Suffering

• For better or worse, a lot of people who build things don't want to part ways. They don't have the short exit plan that a lot of the investors have.

  

  Cameron Winklevoss
  • People
  • Better
  • Short

• I work all day, do research, sketch my ideas, prepare for performances.

  

  Lady Gaga
  • Work
  • Day
  • Research

• Publishing for me is a business, not an ideology.

  

  Barry Eisler
  • Business
  • Me
  • Ideology

• Falling in love, romance, matters of the heart - when you fall in love, on some biochemical level you know there is a chance it won't work out. It's ingrained in us that if you take such an enormous risk on someone with your heart that it might not pay off. I gamble all my chips and I might actually lose everything.

  

  Rachael Taylor
  • Work
  • Risk
  • Chance

• During the run up to the Iraq War, Mike Farrell and I did get on television kind of frequently, but then they saw that that didn't work. They really couldn't bait us into being stupid, so they stopped. You know the mainstream media, corporate media, avoids ever giving anyone who has anything to say a platform, if they can possibly help it.

  

  James Cromwell
  • Up
  • Work
  • War

• I had tuberculosis in my mid-20s. I didn't have much work, was living in a damp London basement in a sleeping bag, and ate only every other day. I looked rough and felt very run down.

  

  Engelbert Humperdinck
  • Work
  • Run
  • Basement

• I wasn't thinking of a sequel when I finished 'Life Class.' What changed my mind was the perception that the characters had a lot of life left in them, a lot of unresolved conflicts, and also I became interested in the Tonks pastel portraits of facially disfigured soldiers and in the whole area of facial reconstruction.

  

  Pat Barker
  • Life
  • Thinking
  • Mind

• If I were not a writer, I would spend more time doing the things that I am already doing, which include doing research in physics, teaching, and running a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower women in Cambodia.

  

  Alan Lightman
  • Time
  • Women
  • Running

• We see plenty of artistic work that reflects superficial social conditions, but very little work that questions fundamental values.

  

  Ai Weiwei
  • Work