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.

But anyone who thinks themselves genuinely unbiased is bound to be taken in.

If there are still men who really want to live in this world, they should first dare to speak out, to laugh, to cry, to be angry, to accuse, to fight-that they may at least cleanse this accursed place of its accursed atmosphere!

I naturally believe there will be a future, but I do not waste my time imagining its radiant beauty. ... It seems to me that we ought to think first about the present. Even if the present is desperately dark, I do not wish to leave it. Will tomorrow be free from darkness? We'll talk about that tomorrow.

Hope is like a path in the countryside.

I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.

Discontent is the wheel that moves people forward.