Like students going to school, the planes on their bombing missions fly over Beijing each morning. And each time I hear their engines attack the air I feel a certain slight tension, as if I were witnessing the invasion of Death, though this heightens my consciousness of the existence of Life.

Where are now the warriors of the world of the spirit? Where are those who raise their voices for truth, who lead us to goodness, beauty, strength and health? Where are those who utter heartwarming words, who will lead us out of the wilderness? Our homes are gone and the nation is destroyed, yet we have no Jeremiah crying out his last sad song to the world and to posterity.

To protect myself from the rear, I have to stand slantwise.

True fighters dare face the sorrows of humanity, and look unflinchingly at bloodshed. What sorrow and joy are theirs! But the Creator's common device for ordinary people is to let the passage of time wash away old traces leaving only pale-red bloodstains and a vague pain; and he lets men live on ignobly and amid these, to keep this quasi-human world going.

The most horrible thing is not a government that stages public executions, but a government that secretly disposes of its victims.

As long as there shall be stones, the seeds of fire will not die.

Creation, even when it is a mere outpouring from the heart, wishes to find a public. By definition, creation is sociable. Yet it can be satisfied with merely one single reader: an old friend, a lover.