“The passions have been sufficiently interpreted; the point now is to discover new ones. ”

“All truths are easy to understand once they have been discovered; the point is to discover them.”

“In these remote corners, I have discovered a center point, where East met West, and although there has been a collision of cultures, there is now a new Christian identity that is distinctly Chinese. The circuitous mountain path in Yunnan province is red because over many years it has been soaked with blood.”

“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”

“I feel as if one would only discover on one's death-bed what one ought to have lived for, and realise too late that one's life has been wasted. Any passionate and courageous life seems good in itself, yet one feels that some element of delusion is involved in giving so much passion to any humanly attainable object. And so irony creeps into the very springs of one's being.”

“If you strike us down now we shall rise again and renew the fight. You cannot conquer Ireland; you cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom then our children will win it by a better deed.”