Ma Jian Quotes

I think it's important to hold a mirror up to society and yourself.

Human creatures, living in the circle of their intimates and friends, are too apt to remain in ignorance of the comments and instructions which may be made of what they say and do in the world at large. I entertain a great horror of this ignorance.

Like most reasonable people, it saddens me when I see Americans celebrating a heritage they don't understand.

I'm craving more soul, I'm craving more truth, I'm craving more socially - just people that are aware of what's going on in the world.

Our incapacity to comprehend other cultures stems from our insistence on measuring things in our own terms.

It is good for society to have this introspection.

I don't write to give joy to readers but to give them a conscience.

By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets.

I feel like Africans are too often portrayed as people on the National Geographic channel: the image is of an African man in a loincloth chasing a gazelle. It's not intentionally racist; I wouldn't call it racist at all. It's a lack of understanding another culture.

As my Russian improves, I become increasingly conscious of just what sort of a society I live in.

I think, for me, personally, I try to be sensitive to issues as I learn about them. And I also try to constantly become not only a certain type of person but also become more in tune to the issues I'm covering. As I get older, I think that things just affect me more.

I think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.

We're not a political band, we're a socially-minded band.

I don't think I'm a political songwriter as much as I am just a political person. I think it's in my fabric.

A lot of other bands have tried to go out there and say we've got views on this and views on that. But some of it I've found opportunist. Duran Duran has always been honest about everything. We've always laid everything out.

I've never understood why artists, who so often condescend to the cliches of their own culture, are so eager to embrace the cliches of cultures they know nothing about.

We are so Post-Modern that we don't realize how Post-Modern we are anymore.

People in the U.K. share my bemusement with the United States that America doesn't share with itself. They have a sense of irony, which America doesn't have, seeing as it's being run by fundamentalists who take things literally.

We didn't start out to make a protest record at all. That would have been too shallow. As usual, it was simply a case of absorbing what's going on around us.

I don't spend my hours worrying how to slip a social message into my act.

I'm a voyeuristic American.

I don't make that hard and fast distinction between political and nonpolitical writing. I write about what bothers me.

I was never totally what we would now call 'politically correct,' even in my most militant phase. I always liked good food, good wines. I suppose it was because I had total confidence in myself.

Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.

I wouldn't say even that I'm a broadly political person. But on occasion, I have felt that I have no choice but to paint something with a strong moral stance.