“Preparing for death is one of the most empowering things you can do. Thinking about death clarifies your life.”

“You need to accept your yesterday, so u can be happy on your today, risk and failures will always be there, and so is success.”

“Startled, he tried to comfort him. But Father said slowly, "I ask myself whether I am afraid of death. I don't think I am. My life as it is now is worse. And it looks as if there is not going to be any ending. Sometimes I feel weak: I stand by Tranquillity River and think, Just one leap and I can get it over with. Then I tell myself I must not. If I die without being cleared, there will be no end of trouble for all of you… I have been thinking a lot lately. I had a hard childhood, and society was full of injustice. It was for a fair society that I joined the Communists. I've tried my best through the years. But what good has it done for the people? As for myself, why is it that in the end I have come to be the ruin of my family? People who believe in retribution say that to end badly you must have something on your conscience. I have been thinking hard about the things I've done in my life. I have given orders to execute some people…" Father went on to tell Jin-ming about the death sentences he had signed, the names and stories of the e-ba ('ferocious despots') in the land reform in Chaoyang, and the bandit chiefs in Yibin. "But these people had done so much evil that God himself would have had them killed. What, then, have I done wrong to deserve all this?" After a long pause, Father said, "If I die like this, don't believe in the Communist Party anymore.”

“When you feel every door has slammed shut in your face and locked you out...find that open window and crawl through it.”

“Screw write what you know, write what you dream and then do your research :) ~Pavarti K Tyler~”

“When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day — but by the minute.”

“Whoever said nothing is impossible obviously hasn't tried nailing Jell-O to a tree.”