Do Not Say We Have Nothing

by Madeleine Thien

he wanted to say it was only music but could not bring himself to voice words so patently untrue.

All these things that we don’t have are nothing compared to the things we did have.

If you want to be an architect, you should go to Tiananmen Square, Sparrow thought. You should see the head, the hands, the feet, the heart, the lungs. You should stand in the middle of the Square and listen.

“Music that is immediately understood will not outlast its generation.”

The government must know that allegiance to the dead was a stubborn loyalty that no policy could eradicate.

It was about having the freedom to live where you chose, to pursue the work you loved.