I was growing up in a society that exerted a lot of control on people, and from both my personality and the social condition, I found gunpowder gradually as a very suitable medium for exploration.

My father was also a painter - actually, a traditional Chinese painter. His personality is pretty timid and cautious. Like him, I was growing up as a cautious kid.

The role of art in society is not to resolve conflicts; rather, it is to express these conflicts and antagonisms.

Using gunpowder as a medium became a way to liberate myself.

At the end of the day, you really want to make sure that organic music, made by human beings, at least has a voice.

I really turned into, you know, the real street kid. I was kind of like a runaway, but I had a mother, you know what I mean, and I had a place to stay.

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.

I want my thoughts to be an incentive for the reader to give his or her own thoughts. After I wrote 'Proust and the Squid,' I received truly hundreds of letters - I'm still receiving them - and the letters that I wrote back helped me formulate my thinking around things I know are important to others.