Quotes by Ma Jian - Page 1

Beijing Coma took me 10 years to finish.
Ma Jian / Writer
Beijing
Coma
Years
Finish
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Living in London is like being on a luxury cruise liner.
Ma Jian / Writer
Cruise
London
Luxury
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I am a writer. Being critical is a writer's responsibility.
Ma Jian / Writer
Critical
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When history is erased, people's moral values are also erased.
Ma Jian / Writer
History
Moral
Moral Values
People
Values
Also
Erased
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When people are poor, they find ways of making things taste like fish.
Ma Jian / Writer
Taste
Fish
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I believe that the power of literature is stronger than the power of tyranny.
Ma Jian / Writer
Believe
Literature
Stronger
Tyranny
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Tyrannies not only want to control your mind and thoughts but your flesh as well.
Ma Jian / Writer
Flesh
Mind
Want
Thoughts Mind Your
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The literal meaning of the Chinese characters for revolution is elimination of life
Ma Jian / Writer
Character
Chinese
Revolution
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Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will belies waiting on the road ahead.
Ma Jian / Writer
Travel
Inspiring Travel
Waiting
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I am completely in favour of dialogue and engagement. But it must be a true, open dialogue.
Ma Jian / Writer
Dialogue
Engagement
Favour
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I left Beijing in 1987, shortly before my books were banned there, but have returned continually.
Ma Jian / Writer
Banned
Beijing
Book
Continually
Returned
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I wanted to analyse and understand how the Chinese people could have their lives so crushed by fear.
Ma Jian / Writer
Chinese
Crushed
People
Analyse
Chinese People
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If you exile a writer, however free the country he is sent to, there will always be a sense of internal constraint.
Ma Jian / Writer
Exile
Constraint
Internal
Sent
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When the written and spoken word is censored, the urban landscape becomes a nation's only physical link to the past.
Ma Jian / Writer
Censored
Landscape
Spoken Word
Urban
Link
Physical
Spoken
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Red Dust was about the late 1980s; it was a time of burgeoning hopes and opening up and people searching for new ways.
Ma Jian / Writer
Dust
Late
New Ways
Opening
Opening Up
People
Red
Time People New
Hopes
Searching
Ways
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The Beijing Olympics represent China's grand entrance onto the world stage and confirmation of its new superpower status.
Ma Jian / Writer
Beijing
China
Confirmation
Olympics
Stage
World
Represent
World Stage
Entrance
Grand
Status
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Only when you are aware of the uniqueness of everyones individual body will you begin to have a sense of your own self-worth.
Ma Jian / Writer
Body
Individual
Self Worth
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The great quality of the 'Three Kingdoms' is that it seems to encapsulate and portray every facet of the Chinese personality.
Ma Jian / Writer
Chinese
Encapsulate
Facet
Portray
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Only when you are aware of the uniqueness of everyone's individual body will you begin to have a sense of your own self-worth.
Ma Jian / Writer
Body
Individual
Self Worth
Uniqueness
Your Body Will
Begin
Your Will Own
Aware
Body Will Your
Sense
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On the face of it, China has won the Olympics. But it is not China that has won, but the Communist party. The Chinese people have lost.
Ma Jian / Writer
Chinese
Communist
Communist Party
Olympics
Chinese People
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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 / Writer
Beijing
Exhibitions
Joined
Underground
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I left Beijing in the late 1980s to live in Hong Kong because, having been blacklisted by the government, I couldn't publish my works on the mainland.
Ma Jian / Writer
Beijing
Hong Kong
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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 see it.
Ma Jian / Writer
China
Lacking
Responsibility
Self
Self Awareness
Writing
Outside
Stepped
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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 caused me deep concern and distress.
Ma Jian / Writer
Able
China
Concern
Distress
Entry
Important
Return
Writing
Caused
Barred
Freely
Personally
Vitally
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While I was writing 'Stick Out Your Tongue' in Beijing, the police began knocking on my door again. As soon as I finished the book, I moved to Hong Kong so that I could work undisturbed on my next novel.
Ma Jian / Writer
Beijing
Book
Finished
Hong Kong
Moved
Next
Novel
Police
Tongue
Writing
Again
Began
Door
Stick
Soon
Undisturbed
While
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I have to live within my memories, within my private universe, and continually return to China, the land where my thoughts are locked. This is a very painful kind of existence, this feeling of nowhereness.
Ma Jian / Writer
China
Existence
Locked
Memories
Painful
Return
Universe
Continually
Private
Thoughts
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'Three Kingdoms' gives you a panoply of different routes; everyone can find their own path. It shows that sometimes the route to fulfilment or success is not the obvious one. You must take twists and turns to achieve a goal.
Ma Jian / Writer
Fulfilment
Obvious
Turns
Twists
Route
Success Is
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The Chinese have made a faustian pact with the government, agreeing to forsake demands for political and intellectual freedom in exchange for more material comfort. They live prosperous lives in which any expression of pain is forbidden.
Ma Jian / Writer
Chinese
Comfort
Expression
Forbidden
Forsake
Intellectual
Pact
Prosperous
Agreeing
Exchange
Demands
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Whatever China I'd been born into, I would probably still have become a painter - I loved sketching portraits as a child, and began art classes at the age 7. But if China hadn't been under Maoist rule, I might never have become a writer.
Ma Jian / Writer
Age
Born
China
Might
Painter
Portraits
Sketching
Child
Writer
Began
Loved
Classes
Whatever
Still
Rule
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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 two decades since, each time that I have gone back, visions from those days seem to return with increasing persistence.
Ma Jian / Writer
Joining
Persistence
Return
Singing
Squares
Two
Days
Each Time
Increasing
Seem
Square
Visions
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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 aren't allowed to mention it. Still today people are being persecuted and imprisoned for disseminating information about it.
Ma Jian / Writer
Apology
Chinese
Debate
Information
Media
People
Persecuted
Today
Allowed
Chinese People
Public
Event
Forced
Imprisoned
Massacre
Mention
Official
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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 published in the west, including the latest one, Beijing Coma, about a student shot in Tiananmen Square, but so far have allowed me to return.
Ma Jian / Writer
Beijing
Book
China
February
Including
Next
Research
Return
Squares
West
Years
Allowed
Authorities
Shot
Student
Far
Latest
Mine
Published
Square
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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 believe a regime's strength rests not its suppression of a plurality of opinions and ideas, but in its capacity and willingness to encourage them.
Ma Jian / Writer
Government
Believe
Capacity
Chinese
Chinese Government
Contrary
Free Speech
Ideas
Speech
Suppression
Willingness
Free
Encourage
Futile
Opinions
Plurality
Rests
Realise
Regime
Repress
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To become self-aware, people must be allowed to hear a plurality of opinions and then make up their own minds. They must be allowed to say, write and publish whatever they want. Freedom of expression is the most basic, but fundamental, right. Without it, human beings are reduced to automatons.
Ma Jian / Writer
Expression
Freedom Of Expression
Human Beings
Self
Writing
Allowed
Basic
Beings
Fundamental
Fundamental Right
Make Up
Minds
Opinions
Plurality
Reduced
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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.
Ma Jian / Writer
Believe
Party
Ties
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I believe that the Tibetans should have the right to control their own destinies and decide for themselves whether they want to be part of China or not. But this view isn't shared by most Chinese, or even the leaders of most Western democracies. As long as the Communist Party is in power, there is little hope for Tibet.
Ma Jian / Writer
Chinese
Communist
Communist Party
Tibet
Western
Destinies
Shared
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After the Tiananmen Massacre, I felt compelled not only to continue writing but to actively resist the restrictions placed on freedom of speech. I set up the publishing company in Hong Kong, with offices in Shenzhen in mainland China, and managed to publish works of fiction, philosophy, and politics by unapproved authors.
Ma Jian / Writer
China
Company
Felt
Fiction
Freedom Of Speech
Hong Kong
Philosophy
Publish
Publishing
Speech
Writing
Actively
After
Authors
Works
Continue
Set
Massacre
Offices
Resist
Placed
Publishing Company
Restrictions
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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 much they are being monitored and controlled, how much the information they receive is restricted and warped, until they step out of line, that is, and feel the heavy hand of the state fall on them.
Ma Jian / Writer
Believe
Chinese
Controlled
Fall
Free Society
Hands
Heavy
Information
Aware
Meant
Chinese People
How Much
Receive
Restricted
Step
Warped
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I am trying to persuade my family to spend more time in China. It's no fun to be in exile. I can't even figure out the basic 26 letters, let alone operate, in English. I often feel that although I've found the sky of freedom above my head, I've lost the soil I stand on. I need to be back in my motherland, where I can find inspirations.
Ma Jian / Writer
Alone
China
Exile
Fun
Letters
Lost
Motherland
Sky
Soil
Alone Time Family
Above
Stand
Although
Basic
English
Often
Alone Family Time
Figure
Head
Spend
Inspirations
No Fun
Operate
Persuade
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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.
Ma Jian / Writer
Counter Culture
Cutting
Thinking
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