Ba Jin

“He had never disagreed with anyone in his life, no matter how unfairly they may have treated him. He preferred to swallow his tears, suppress his anger and bitterness; he would bear anything rather than oppose a person directly. Nor did it ever occur to him to wonder whether this forbearance might not be harmful to others.”

“The unreasonable social system, the marriage without freedom, the yoke of traditional ideas, and the family autocracy, destroyed we don't know how many young souls. In my twenty eight years, I already had it accumulated so many, so many shadows. In that autumn smile, in that smiling which was the same as crying, I saw the young people's corpses in the whole past generation. It was as if I heard a painful sound saying: "This must be ended."”

“Victory is for them, not for us. We have not made profit out of our country's misfortune. Victory does not bring us luck.”

“You have your thoughts and I have mine. This is the fact and you can't change it even if you kill me.”

“I've lived on royalties all my life. It is the readers who have supported me.”

“I write just because the fire of my emotion is burning. Had I not, I would not have been able to find peace.”

“Before my eyes are many miserable scenes, the suffering of others and myself forces my hands to move. I become a machine for writing.”

“Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future.”

“I am a person always full of contradictions... It was hard to choose whether to devote myself to revolution as a soldier or as a writer.”

“Loving truth and living honestly is my attitude to life. Be true to yourself and be true to others, thus you can be the judge of your behavior.”

“I believe in the future a new Dante will write a new Divine Comedy.”

“Nobody would say the cowshed was heaven and nobody would say the inhuman torture of so many victims be called a revolution of the proletariat. … A museum should be established to remind China of the follies and disasters that had fallen from 1966 to 1976. We cannot forget what had happened and history should not repeat itself.”

“I have spent myself on all kinds of things … I have advanced much politically but I have written little and moreover have written it badly.”

“Looking at this immensely swollen face in front of him the doctor gently consoled the patient, "Comrade, don't worry and you will recover." As a matter of fact, he was thinking quite the opposite, "You will die. I can be of no more help."”

“The doctors realized very clearly that their minds and emotions were changing from day to day. On the one hand they were healing the patient, and on the other it looked as if they were healing themselves too. It was this chief surgeon who first volunteered to offer his skin when grafting began.”

“The changes in the chief and the assistant chief surgeon were most noticeable. At first they felt that they were just fulfilling their duty to the injured worker but were very dubious about the result. But then, full of confidence they really began doing their best.”