I used to see Estee Lauder's ads everywhere in the subways of Beijing, and I thought how wonderful it would be if the model on them was myself!

- Liu Wen

I went to China for a brief working visit, and I thought that Shanghai was interesting, but Beijing totally grabbed me.

- Marcus Brigstocke

In my 20s, when I was a photojournalist in Beijing. I joined an underground art group and put on clandestine exhibitions of my paintings.

- Ma Jian

Beijing Coma took me 10 years to finish.

- Ma Jian

I left Beijing in 1987, shortly before my books were banned there, but have returned continually.

- Ma Jian

I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.

- Mira Sorvino

It took years, honestly, to deal with the disappointment of Beijing.

- Ryan Hall