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Memories were a burden, and it was best to be done with them; soon people lost not only the will but the power to remember. When yesterday, today, and tomorrow merge into an indistinguishable blur, memory—apart from being potentially dangerous—has very little meaning at all.
As far as I was concerned, staying was no different from leaving: either way, it was not our decision to make.
Memory was like a rope they could clutch as they made their way forward, or use to haul themselves back to days that had passed.
Our hearts are burning.
children will find entertainment where they can, no matter the circumstances.
I had not the slightest idea what was going to happen next, sensing only that things would sort themselves out somehow, just as a leaf tossed about by the wind will eventually fall to the ground. But when it will fall and where it will fall are not something the leaf can decide.
a long dispute ensued, leading in 1953 to my father’s being placed on probation by the Communist Party for “political negativity and repeated errors in relations between the sexes.”
Like drowning ghosts, they writhed in the heat and were swallowed by flames.
Never forget that under a totalitarian system cruelty and absurdity go hand in hand.
You are silent, not even breathing Fins and gills intact, but unable to move: You are absolutely still Never responding to the outside world Unable to see sky and water Unable to hear the sound of the surf.
To go on living, you need to struggle Advancing through struggle Even if it kills you You need to harness all the energy you have.
To break free of constraints doesn’t mean you have gained freedom, for freedom is an expression of courage and sustained risk-taking, and facing freedom is always difficult, whatever the time and place.
To conventional culture, I said, art should be a nail in the eye, a spike in the flesh, gravel in the shoe: the reason why art cannot be ignored is that it destabilizes what seems settled and secure.
Change is an objective fact, and whether you like it or not, only by confronting challenges can you be sure you have enough kindling to keep the fire in your spirit burning. Don’t try to dream other people’s dreams, I told them; you have to face up to your own predicament honestly, on your own terms.
The difficulty in making something happen, I have found, is often directly correlated to its importance: things that come easy aren’t worth doing.
What you like in life is almost always more real than what you love, and more accessible.
To speak is better than not to speak: if everyone spoke, this society would have transformed itself long ago. Change happens when every citizen says what he or she wants to say; one person’s silence exposes another to danger.
give the authorities the finger before the finger got cut off.
Even in the grimmest of circumstances, individuals can retain the power to be human, and society is shaped by the actions of countless individuals. People have their own sense of right and wrong, one that cannot be entirely replaced by authoritarian principles.
“Ai Weiwei,” he said, “if you just open your eyebrows more, you’ll be happy.”
“Dad, do you know why I’m not happy? Because I feel that time in this world passes too quickly.” “So think of a way to make time pass more slowly. You’re such a resourceful entomologist.” “The only way is to be sad. Being sad makes time pass slower.”
‘I hope a breeze that likes him blows over his tombstone.’ ” I loved that line. Keep it for me, I thought.
it is precisely when daily experiences present a barrier to exercising logic that art begins to show its power.
Art always engages with the uncertainty of life, and empathy and trust are prerequisites for any fruitful discussion.
Tolerating the distortion of history is the first step toward tolerating humiliation in real life.
During those long weeks in secret detention, my fear was not that I might not be able to see my son again, but that I might not have the chance to let him really know me. So the idea came to me that if I was released, to bridge the gap between us, I should write down what I knew of my father and tell my son honestly who I am, what life means to me, why freedom is so precious, and why autocracy fears art.
Of a thousand years of joys and sorrows Not a trace can be found You who are living, live the best life you can Don’t count on the earth to preserve memory
in these memories there is little that is wholly mine. I stumbled on those parts that never belonged to me, like a spider that cannot make a proper web and whose every struggle only destroys the silk it has already spun.
