Ma Jian Quotes

Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.

I feel I have walked onto a stage. The people around me are absorbed in their parts, putting on this great show, but nothing seems real. Every object looks like a prop. Since I have no part I am reduced to the role of a spectator, but there is nowhere to sit, so I have to mingle with the actors on stage. It is a terrible feeling.

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 the universe, but we can never see heaven, because our flesh ties us to the earth and the people around us. But when the people around you have lost their will to be free, then earth becomes a hell.

Beauty can make a woman rich, but if she relies solely on her looks to get by, she'll always remain under a man's thumb.

I left Beijing because I wanted to be alone and to forge my own path, but I know now that no path is solitary, we all tread across other people's beginnings and ends.

I don't know where I am going, I just know I had to leave. Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.

От една страна, тибетците не приемаха смъртта с тъга, просто смятаха, че умрелият се е преместил в друг свят и толкова. От друга, не разбирах хората, които с часове се кланяха в храмовете и около тях. Откъде такъв страх от наказание?

Над езерото Ямдрог се надигнаха изпарения, които се омесиха в пухкаво валмо и закриха водата. Мъглата се сгъсти, залюля се като женски дъх, издигна се нагоре, разпростря се плавно и покри кървавото слънце. Зашава безмълвно по повърхността на езерото, отдели се от нея и бавно се разтече към полите на планината.

My mind flashed back to the Cultural Revolution, when a group of Red Guards pulled our neighbor, Granny Li, out of the opera company’s dormitory block and ordered the rest of us to bring out our thermos flasks. We then had to stand and watch as the Red Guards poured ten flasks of boiling water over Granny Li’s head.

If there is road in front of me, I will follow it. I don't mind where it goes, as long as it takes me forward.

Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead. I want to think on my feet, live on the run.

There are still many white mountains to cross, but I am on my way home.

But utopias always lead to dystopias, and dictators invariably become gods who demand daily worship.

Before the sparrow arrived, you had almost stopped thinking about flight. Then, last winter, it soared through the sky and landed in front of you, or more precisely on the windowsill of the covered balcony adjoining your bedroom. You knew the grimy window panes were caked with dead ants and dust, and smelt as sour as the curtains. But the sparrow wasn’t put off. It jumped inside the covered balcony and ruffled its feathers, releasing a sweet smell of tree bark into the air. Then it flew into your bedroom, landed on your chest and stayed there like a cold egg.

I paint as the mood takes me- it is an emotional release. But in this society moods and images can incriminate you. Writing is much safer for me. I can hide myself behind a maze of words and the details of people's lives.

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 truck, lifted her shirt and cut out her kidneys with a surgical knife,’ Mau Sen said, his face stony and white. ‘I think that removing the organs of convicts while they are still alive is too much. It completely contravenes medical ethics.’ ‘This is a dissection class, not a political meeting,’ Sun Chunlin said.

On July 3, 1968, Chairman Mao issued an order calling for the ruthless suppression of class enemies. He wanted all members of the Five Black Categories to be eliminated, together with TWENTY THREE NEW TYPES of enemy , which included anyone who had ever served as a policeman before the Liberation, or who had been sent to prison or labor camp. And not only them but their family and distant relatives as well. That’s a lot of people. Yes. Just think, the literal meaning of the Chinese characters for “revolution” is “elimination of life

I see my skeleton walking down the street now. I’m walking behind it. Our feet touch the ground at the same time. I am my own shadow. The road we’re walking along looks familiar. The trees lining the pavement have been bleached by the sun. There are stone steps on my left. I climb them. This is the route I used to take after school. It’s very dark. The skeleton has disappeared.

She discovered that women don't own their bodies: their wombs and genitals are battle zones over which their husbands and the state fight for control - territories their husbands invade for sexual gratification and to produce male heirs, and which the state probes, monitors, guards and scrapes so as to assert its power and spread fear. These continual intrusions into her bodu's most intimate parts have made her lose her sense of who she is. All she is certain of is that she is a legal wife and an illegal mother. I'd be better off dead.

Стига да имаш барут и пушка, кон и куче, тук, в платата, можеш да уловиш диво магаре или газела и на воля да ги изядеш, след което да си дремнеш.

Why is it that men are so good at turning their heaven into a hell?

Beijing Coma took me 10 years to finish. The first few years, I wrote very little. A single recurrent image was blocking my progress: a man lying naked on an iron bed, a sparrow perched on his arm, his chest illuminated by a cold beam of light. Those 10 years were a struggle to prove to myself the power and meaning of that single beam of light.

When our parents are alive, they stand in front of us, blocking our view of death. But once they’ve gone, we find ourselves at the cliff edge.

Când nu mai avem puterea să ne luptăm cu lumea asta sălbatică, ne întoarcem în noi și începem să ne facem rău nouă înșine...

Ce ciudate mai sunt și relațiile dintre oameni. Ne purtăm frumos, ba chiar exagerat de frumos, cu acei oameni de care ne e teamă, în schimb cu cei timizi și retrași ne purtăm ca niște despoți. (...) Cu toții avem o natură dublă.

Хората тук оредяват с увеличаването на надморската височина. Тибетците в тази част са ниски и мудни. Всички подвижни неща – облаците, стадата, кучетата, разветите знамена, жената, която крачеше с дете на гърба, и аз, бродягата, който тъкмо пристигаше – мърдахме като на забавен каданс.

It is only when you take control of your life that you know you are alive.

I know now that no path is solitary, we all tread across other people's beginnings and ends.

When the people around you have lost their will to be free, then earth becomes a hell.

From now on, every individual, irrespective of rank, must submit their dreams and nightmares to me for examination and approval. If they fail to comply, every dream they have ever had, and every dream they ever will have, will be deemed an illegal dream!

Ebeveynlerimiz hayattayken hâlâ genciz demektir,' dedi. "Ama öldükleri anda yaşlanırız..

Nannan, sana öğrettiğim deyimi hatırla: "Kitap okumayan çocuklar, hangi hazinelere sahip olduklarını bilemezler. Bu hazinelerin ne kadar değerli olduğunu bilselerdi, tüm gece uyumayıp mum ışığında okurlardı.

Bütün insanlar aynı dilde acı çeker. Aynı dilde gülümsedikleri gibi

İnsanlar genellikle acıdan kaçmak için intihar eder. Ancak acı yok olmaz. Sadece arkalarında bıraktıkları akrabalarına geçer.

Sen haklıydın, burası kadınlara göre bir ülke değil.

If the sages have managed to transcend the fetters of samsara, why do they feel the need to leave these mementoes behind?

As you shrink back inside your body, your childhood fears flicker through your mind. All the feelings you’ve felt in the past have been sheltering inside your flesh.

Yes. Just think: the literal meaning of the Chinese characters for “revolution” is “elimination of life”.

As a child in the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, I dreamed of being a painter. My art teacher warned me that paintings could land a person behind bars, especially portraits, and advised me to stick to anodyne landscapes.

We relished the small freedoms granted to us, but wanted more. We read Ginsberg’s Howl, and longed for the day when we too could sing out of our windows in despair.

Mintea mea, îşi spuse, e plină cu poveştile celorlalţi. Însă n-am habar cum să le pun laolaltă.

When man’s spirit is in chains, he loses all respect for nature.

The Chinese alive today are reincarnations of torturers. The wronged souls of the past will haunt us for ever. We must pay for the sins of our ancestors.

Families destroyed by Mao Zedong hang posters of him on their walls. Because they all know Chinese history changes as frequently as the Yellow River floods its banks.

My real name is not Li Chengyuan, it’s Li Aidang. My parents were murdered in the Cultural Revolution because of the names they gave to my brothers and me. Being the youngest child I could have stayed in the city, but I knew it would be safer to leave.’ ‘Aidang – love the Party. What’s wrong with that?’ ‘My brothers were called Aiguo and Aimin. Get it? Love the Guomindang!’ He smiled bitterly. ‘My parents had no idea, you see, never occurred to them. Guo-min-dang.

When people have no sense of self, relationships are just temporary distractions from the inner emptiness and fall apart at the first obstacle. My

It’s easy to be kind when you are poor. I’ve met a lot of kind people in my travels, but the cost of their kindness is exclusion from the outside world. As soon as a road is built, the kindness vanishes.

no path is solitary, we all tread across other people’s beginnings and ends.

The law is powerless against a crowd.

What is a wife for if not to produce sons? Why are you so obsessed with having a son? It's so feudal! Don;t you know that men and women are equal now? My brother has no sons, so it's my responsibility to continue the family line. Our daughters will join their husband's family when they marry, and their names won't be recorded in the Kong register. So they serve no purpose to us. Still clinging to those outmoded Confucian beliefs! I warn you the modern world will leave you behind. Huh! Just a few days on the road and already you've become worldly-wise! Don't forget, you left school at eight while I graduated at sixteen, so I'll always be cleverer than you. Stop being so patronising. We're both fugitives now. Let's see how far your male chauvinism gets you here.

This baby will never get a residence permit. It will be one of those 'Black Children' who are born without permission and banned from getting free schooling and medical treatment. When it grows up, it won't even be able to marry and it'll curse us for condemning it to a life s an outcast.

Have you no humanity? You want to kill our unborn child? Have you forgotten that you too once lay in your mother's womb? Humanity? If your baby turns out to be a girl, you'll throw her into the river, so don't talk to me about humanity! You migrant workers travel around the country dumping baby girls as you do. You're the ones who have no shame! You think we wanted to come here and deal with you squalid boat people? No, the higher authorities sent us here because of all the filth that's been washing up downstream.

It's still alive, the stubborn little thing. What shall we do with it? Strangle it. We'll register it as a stillbirth. Don't wipe its face. Illegal babies aren't entitled to have their mucus removed.

Getting pregnant without authorization is against the law. Argue your case with the government, if you want. Go to America-- see what they say. China's population control policy has the full support of the United Nations.

It's still alive, the stubborn little thing. What shall we do with it? Strangle it. We]ll register it as a stillbirth. Don't wipe its face. Illegal babies aren't entitled to have their mucus removed.

If a panda gets pregnant, the entire nation celebrates. But if a woman gets pregnant, she's treated like a criminal.

I'm sick of your male chauvinism. No wonder Confucius wasn't welcomed during his travels - jabbering on about male superiority all the time!

All these years you drone on about benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, then you go and sell your own daughter.

If they see a woman they suspect of being illegally pregnant, they pounce on her and drag her to a clinic for an abortion. They are paid fifty yuan for each woman they bring in.

If you're unlucky enough to have been born with a cunt, you'll be monitored wherever you go. Men control our vaginas; the state controls our wombs. You can try to lock up your body, but the government still owns the key. That's just women's fate.

Meili pitchers herself in Heaven Township again, sitting in a safe and peaceful yard, knitting quietly while inhaling deep breaths of the chemicals that prevent women conceiving. She doesn't know how long it will take to travel from the fertile mountains of Nuwa to the sterile fields of Heaven Township, but at least she now has a sense of where happiness lies.

All leather, whether from shoes, gloves or sofas, is shredded and boiled to produce the protein which is added to counterfeit milk formula.

Don't let me return as a woman in my next life! I'd rather be a dog or a rat than suffer this pain again!

Never rely on a husband for your happiness. The government persecute men, then men persecute their wives in return. And what do the wives do? If they have a child, they slap it to let off steam. If not, they drown themselves or swallow bottles of pesticide.

The team's chairman told him that if the baby is a girl and they decide not to keep her, the Welfare Office would take the baby off their hands and pay the 4000-yuan fine for the illegal birth. It's common knowledge that the Welfare Office sells children in their care to foreigners for a 30,000-yuan profit.

You have to inhale a lot of those chemicals before they can take effect. They're called dioxins, apparently. The family planning officers there are very relaxed, because they know that however hard a man tries, he's unlikely to get his wife pregnant. What a wonderful place it sounds!

Decades of indoctrination, propaganda, violence and untruths have left the Chinese people so numb and confused, they have lost the ability to tell fact from fiction. They have swallowed the lie that the Party leaders are responsible for the country’s economic miracle, rather than the vast army of low-paid workers. The rabid consumerism encouraged in the last thirty years and which, along with inflated nationalism, lies at the heart of the China Dream is turning the Chinese into overgrown children who are fed, clothed and entertained, but have no right to remember the past or ask questions.