My family has lived here for 200 years. When we came back here after the Cultural Revolution our old home had been destroyed so I had to start again. Now we have to leave for good.

to expose enemies. They include all the old traditional concepts, the irrational systems that obstruct progress, all the forces that destroy human nature.

Die or succeed is the motto. If you're the tough one, the oldest in the family, you have to stand on your own two feet. You can't sit by and watch your parents, your brothers suffer.

The revolution is carried out by means of one's thought, not through one's family background.

The Cultural Revolution brought tragedy to my family. My son is now 17. When I've brought him here, I tell him of the tragedy.

There wasn't a single item of importance [in the newspaper]. A tower of illusion, all of it, made of illusory bricks and full of holes. If life were made up only of imporant things, it really would be a dangerous house of glass, scarcely to be handled carelessly. But everyday life was exactly like the headlines. And so everybody, knowing the meaninglessness of existence, sets the centre of his compass at his own home.