Ma Jian quotes - page 2

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)
If you exile a writer, however free the country he is sent to, there will always be a sense of internal constraint. View quote
Ma Jian
I am completely in favour of dialogue and engagement. But it must be a true, open dialogue. View quote
Ma Jian
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. View quote
Ma Jian
I am a writer. Being critical is a writer's responsibility. View quote
Ma Jian
When the written and spoken word is censored, the urban landscape becomes a nation's only physical link to the past. View quote
Ma Jian
In my 20s, when I was a photojournalist in Beijing. I joined an underground art group and put on clandestine exhibitions of my paintings. View quote
Ma Jian
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. View quote
Ma Jian
The great quality of the 'Three Kingdoms' is that it seems to encapsulate and portray every facet of the Chinese personality. View quote
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. View quote
Ma Jian
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)
When people are poor, they find ways of making things taste like fish. View quote
Ma Jian