Ma Jian Quotes

30 quotes in 553 categories

• I will not let a political party tell me how to live, when to die or what to believe in. Our souls are linked to…
• Before the counter-culture revolutionary Li Lian was executed in 1971 for criticising the Cultural Revolution, pour policemen pushed her face against the window of a…
• Only when you are aware of the uniqueness of everyones individual body will you begin to have a sense of your own self-worth.
• My hope is that the Chinese government will come to realise that it is futile to repress free speech, and that contrary to what they…
• The literal meaning of the Chinese characters for revolution is elimination of life
• When history is erased, people's moral values are also erased.
• I meant that the Chinese people are not aware of their own entrapment. They believe they live in a free society, but don't realize how…
• Beijing Coma took me 10 years to finish.
• I believe that the power of literature is stronger than the power of tyranny.
• I left Beijing in 1987, shortly before my books were banned there, but have returned continually.
• I wanted to analyse and understand how the Chinese people could have their lives so crushed by fear.
• Living in London is like being on a luxury cruise liner.
• Red Dust was about the late 1980s; it was a time of burgeoning hopes and opening up and people searching for new ways.
• The Beijing Olympics represent China's grand entrance onto the world stage and confirmation of its new superpower status.
• Tyrannies not only want to control your mind and thoughts but your flesh as well.
• China is completely lacking in self-awareness and as someone who has stepped outside that society, I have a responsibility to write about it as I…
• In 1989, I was on Tiananmen Square with the students, living in their makeshift tents and joining their jubilant singing of the Internationale. In the…
• In February of this year I returned to China to research my next book. The authorities know about the novels of mine that have been…
• It is vitally important for me, both personally and for my writing, to be able to return to China freely, so being barred entry has…
• The Chinese people have been forced to forget the Tiananmen massacre. There has been no public debate about the event, no official apology. The media…

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