“I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself.”

One always has to wait until the sugar melts, the memory dies, the wound scars over, the sun sets, the unhappiness lifts and fades away.

To will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision.

She was not to look beyond herself for the meaning of her life.

Capabilities are clearly manifested only when they have been realized.

To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it’s hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody.

The body is the instrument of our hold on the world.

Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms.

Her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.

People seem to think that if you keep your head empty you automatically fill your balls.

There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.

When you stubbornly give one man a chance, you arbitrarily deny it to another one.

Self-consciousness is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself.

Literature takes its revenge on reality by making it the slave of fiction.

One of the benefits that oppression secures for the oppressor is that the humblest among them feels superior.

Counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen.

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

Maybe [success] is because I’m in China and I’m more open. Maybe it’s my independent behavior, or because I participated in certain projects. I have no idea.

I don’t think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism.

If there’s the right condition, I always want to express the concept or ideas in a very independent way.

The importance of elections, transparency, legal procedures, an independent army, and the judicial system is not regarded as highly in China. These core values are the most important evidence of the health of a society, quality of life, and security.

Now you have the equal opportunity to equip yourself through information and knowledge and express yourself as an independent mind.

I’d like a relationship that was like two tree trunks side by side, strong but independent.

If there’s one thing that can save the novel, it is to make it independent of cinema, to narrate in a way that cinema can never narrate, using to its benefit those particular characteristics which belong to writing.

Don’t depend on anyone too much. Even your shadow leaves when it’s dark.