17 Quotes by Qiu Miaojin

For a long time, my hidden shame had made me push everyone away. I'd rejected them before they could reject me. I ran away from close relationships even with the people who loved me. I was a blind man fallen into the ocean.

Secretly though, I did sort of enjoy being a fucked-up mess. Apart from that, I didn't have a whole lot going on.

With sincerity, courage, & honesty, one can face death, extreme physical pain, & even extreme psychological pain. One can resist persecution from individuals, society, or government. To live in preparation of adversity & finding ways to preserve your core values --this is what it means to learn "how to live.

Human nature has its fatal weaknesses, but 'love' means embracing the whole of human nature, the bad within the good, the benign within the malicious, the beautiful within the tragic. 'Love' is the experience of this whole, its unfinished parts, including those of one's own in relation to those of the other.

Only a spirit of artistic sincerity can console the souls of humankind.

Love is not merely need alone, & what is more important is loving you, & making my true nature comprehensible to you.

Sweeping that other me into their arms, they led me in a dance within societal norms, along a trajectory based on a delusion. (Though I couldn't define what I was, I knew what I wasn't.)

Unhealthy love is two people stoking a shared fantasy of desperate beauty, weaponizing passion and desire.