“If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution.”

Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated.

The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.

Passivity is fatal to us. Our goal is to make the enemy passive.

Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole.

The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.

Let a hundred flowers bloom.

Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.

The differences between friends cannot but reinforce their friendship.

All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.

The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn’t.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

There is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause.

If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.

People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.

In waking a tiger, use a long stick.

Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive one; it is man and not materials that counts.

The metaphor is – an origin, the origin of an image which acts directly, immediately.

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that’s not going to be me.

I would like to direct.

It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick that, second only to their need of fresh air, is their need of light; that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room and that it is not only light but direct sunlight they want.

Whoever the master is whom you prefer, this must only be a directive for you. Otherwise you will never be anything but an imitator.

The degradation of our environment is undeniably a direct result of our lack of regard, lack of accountability, and lack of responsibility.

What we do to animals directly impacts everything, because we are all connected. It disrupts the food chain, it funds terrorism (ivory), it changes our climate, our oceans, it starts wars.

It’s not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn’t.