“Freedom is nothing but the distance between the hunter and the hunted.”

Being a poet in the States is quite different from being one in China, because in the States poetry depends on the universities for its support. They finance the poets and help them get published. That isn’t so in China. But overall it is the same. You can’t change society with poetry.

On the one hand poetry is useless. It can’t change the world materially. On the other hand it is a basic part of human existence. It came into the world when humans did. It’s what makes human beings human.

As a writer, the most important thing for me is to continue to write, no matter where I am.

Perhaps the final hour is come I have left no testament Only a pen, for my mother I am no hero in an age without heroes I just want to be a man.

I don’t think of writing my poems for China or for the world. I mainly think of a small audience of friends and people I know. I am writing for that small group. They are not necessarily going to be able to read it, but that’s what I have in mind when I write.

Bei Dao became the most well-known name for me because of certain criticism of my work. Bei Dao was the name under which my work was criticized. So I became more well-known under Bei Dao than under the other names.

Writing is the thing that sustains me and keeps me going. It is a form of self-preservation for me.

In the world I am Always a stranger I do not understand its language It does not understand my silence

The name Bei Dao was actually given to me with the help of friends. When we were publishing our unofficial magazine, Today, we wanted to avoid being harassed by the police so we were trying to think of names that we could use. It was done very casually.

Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.

For time is the longest distance between two places.

I’m exchanging molecules every 30 days with the natural world and in a spiritual sense I know I am a part of it and take my photographs from that emotional feeling within me, rather than from an emotional distance as a spectator

I’ve always been hopeful about Scotland’s prospects. And I now believe more than ever that Scotland is within touching distance of achieving independence and equality.

Let man live at a distance from God, and the universe remains neutral or hostile to him. But let man believe in God, and immediately all around him the elements, even the irksome, of the inevitable organize themselves into a friendly whole, ordered to the ultimate success of life.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‘escape of energy,’ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

Now I know being close to you was never about the proximity.

My brother and I ended up being known for our distance, but we had no idea how far we could hit the ball because we hit it the same, and all of a sudden.