some weiwei

"...yes ceramics is kind of crazy. i hate ceramics... but i do it. i think if you hate something too much you have to do it. you have to use that."

"i think poetry is for keeping our intellect in the stage before rationality. it brings us to a pure sense of contact with our feelings. at the same time, of course, it does have a strong literary expression; but the most important thing is that it brings us to the innocent stage in which imagination and language can be most vulnerable and at the same time most penetrating."

"... nothing was planned. the most beautiful thing that ever happened in my life was by coincidence and not by plan. and it often happens because you don't plan. if you have plans, you only have one go. if you don't have plans, it often turns out well because you've followed the situation. that's why i've always jumped into unprepared situations, the most exciting condition."

"... i want the size to be more like the scale of furniture, which can be put in any place. you can't identify it; it's not you're familiar with. it's more like a foreign object because you don't know its usage, but its made to such high quality that you can't ignore its purpose. but its purpose is you don't know. i feel it's very interesting to put a tremendous effort or art or craftsmanship into something useless or even nameless..."

from the penguin paperback: ai weiwei speaks with hans ulrich obrist