The Secret Piano Quotes

“The search for a proper tempo is not confined to the world of music - one must seek it in life as well”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“Montesquieu wrote: "I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve." If one substituted the word music for reading, the exact same dictum applied to me.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“Everything was burning. Today it was the bodies; tomorrow it would be the spirit.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“Acknowledge diversity and you will achieve unity. (Rabindranath Tagore)”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“The best man is like water. Water is good, it benefits all things and does not compete with them. It dwells in lowly places that all disdain. This is why it is so near to Tao.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“time can bring about eventually supplants human justice. Chinese philosophers have an expression for this: bu de liao—knowing when to leave the past behind, instead of endlessly seeking revenge. On”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“The Chinese are well acquainted with this way of seeing things; they often use the image of water to illustrate it. To see down to the bottom of a lake, the water must be calm and still. The calmer the water, the farther down one can see. The exact same thing is true for the mind—the more tranquil and detached one is, the greater the depths one can plumb.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“When you think you are descending, you are climbing, but you do not know it. When you think you are climbing, in reality you are descending. Keep working and one day, without expecting it, you will achieve your desire.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“but I couldn’t wait. I wanted to leave immediately, to flee. Forever.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“You can feel it, Zhu Xiao-Mei. The listener can hear it.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“No. It comes from the breath, the place from which life and the spirit originate. Try to breathe correctly, and take care that your feet are placed solidly on the ground and that your diaphragm is steady. You’ll see that you are much less tense. If you are more flexible, in reality you will be stronger.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“The point is not to take a middle path that is a type of compromise resulting from a refusal to choose extremes. Rather, it is about finding a point of equilibrium that allows one to bring out every dimension of the work.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“As a young revolutionary, this was a painful lesson for me: if you wanted to survive in this country, you’d best not be honest.”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“I didn’t know how to read. Mother was my library. I read mother One day The world will be at peace Man will be able to fly Wheat will sprout in the snow Money will have no purpose (…) But in the meantime Mother says We have to work a lot. (Lu Yuan, Fairy Tales) A”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“I have witnessed many men Silently weeping In the night (Tang Qi, “The Solemn Hour”) There”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“You are cheating Beethoven,” he said to a student who had altered a difficult passage to make it easier to play. “But you are also cheating yourself—and God!”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“But what better proof of music’s universality that a Chinese woman was able to win over a South American man while performing a European composer?”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

“The Cultural Revolution scarred me for life. Each morning when I get up, I wonder how I can go on living, how I can find peace after what I have experienced. The legacy of that period has left me with a severe psychological handicap. The sessions of”
― Zhu Xiao-Mei, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations