Top 35 Quotes by Ma Jian

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.