Ma Jian Quotes
After the Tiananmen Massacre, I felt compelled not only to continue writing but to actively resist the restrictions placed on freedom of speech. I set up the publishing company in Hong Kong, with offices in Shenzhen in mainland China, and managed to publish works of fiction, philosophy, and politics by unapproved authors.
Quotes to Explore
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I like being from a city that is not entrenched in show business. When you're in New York City or Los Angeles, even if you're not dealing with show business, there's still this sense that it's the center of the universe.
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So people think I'm lying about my age all the time? It's the records that are wrong. I've never told anyone how old I am. The minute they ask me, I say 'That's none of your business.' So that means I've never once lied about my age. Now that's true!
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My failures have been errors in judgment, not of intent.
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Humor's always been the problem of my work, hasn't it? When working, I feel satisfied when I surprise myself. And when I surprise myself, I wind up laughing.
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I have this kind of mild nice-guy exterior, but inside my heart is like a steel trap.
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Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity.
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He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in opportunity for himself and others.
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I suppose anybody just losing it and sputtering curses is pretty funny. But I think it would be more of a challenge, much more of a challenge, to make a cursing dad funny.
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Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.
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I still find it hard to believe that the whole era of jazz is over.
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A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.
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I went through the extremes of amazing notoriety and also the dreaded things that you never thought you'd have to live through. Not everything works the way you want it to, but if I sit back and think, 'Am I happy about this?' Yeah. I wouldn't have done anything any better.
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I always hope to be a better person tomorrow than today.
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If the people don't want to come out to the ballpark, nobody's going to stop them.
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Carrie-Anne Moss is awesome. I am just going to put that out there.
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Actually, I don't think there's anyone that represents the artists, except the artists themselves.
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All the characters on 'Girls' are growing and changing, which is how real people behave, especially when we're young, trying to figure out who we are, doing things that are the polar opposite of our characteristics.
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Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.
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I work hard at what I do, and it does take time and a lot of commitment, so for me, it is proving to other people that I'm not just another dummy.
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It's mystifying to me why the House leadership will not allow a straight up-or-down vote on a pay raise. I vote against every pay raise because taxpayers deserve better.
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Immigrants have always come into the country with low levels of education. Whether it's the Irish or Italian or Polish, here is the land of opportunity. It's where people come in at the bottom and build themselves up. To try to bring in people who have already made it is un-American.
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I worked in the book publishing business for nearly two decades before I turned my attention to writing, first with a couple ghostwriting projects, plus a crappy novel that absolutely no one wanted to publish. Then I moved to Luxembourg for my wife's job and found the inspiration for 'The Expats.'
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If we got there and we looked up and we said, "You know what? Black folks are still doing a little bit worse off than whites, but it's not like it was 20 years ago," then we can have a discussion about how do we get that last little bit. But that's a high-class problem to have.
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After the Tiananmen Massacre, I felt compelled not only to continue writing but to actively resist the restrictions placed on freedom of speech. I set up the publishing company in Hong Kong, with offices in Shenzhen in mainland China, and managed to publish works of fiction, philosophy, and politics by unapproved authors.
