1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Bei Dao

Bei Dao Quotes

Bei Dao is another name for Zhifu Island.Bei Dao is the pen name of the Chinese poet Zhao Zhenkai . He was born in Beijing and has acquired American citizenship. He chose the pen name because he came from the north and because of his preference for solitude. Bei Dao is the most notable representative of the Misty Poets, a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution.

✵ 2. August 1949
Bei Dao photo
Bei Dao: 6   quotes 0   likes

Famous Bei Dao Quotes

“a perpetual stranger
am I to the world
I don't understand its language
my silence it can't comprehend”

Bei Dao

"A perpetual stranger...", p. 110
Variant translation:
In the world I am
Always a stranger
I do not understand its language
It does not understand my silence
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

“I am no hero
In an age without heroes
I just want to be a man”

Bei Dao

"Declaration", p. 62
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

“Let me tell you, world,
I—do—not—believe!
If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,
Count me as number one thousand and one.I don't believe the sky is blue:
I don't believe in thunder's echoes;
I don't believe that dreams are false:
I don't believe that death has no revenge.”

Bei Dao

"The Answer" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50088/the-answer-56d22cd8d69d0, p. 33
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

“we are not guiltless
long ago we became accomplices
of the history in the mirror”

Bei Dao

"Accomplices", p. 89
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

“Freedom is nothing but the distance
between the hunter and the hunted”

Bei Dao

"Accomplices", p. 89
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

“I will not kneel on the ground
Allowing the executioners to look tall
The better to obstruct the wind of freedom”

Bei Dao

"Declaration", p. 62
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

Similar authors

John Cage photo
John Cage 43
American avant-garde composer
Friedrich Dürrenmatt photo
Friedrich Dürrenmatt 19
Swiss author and dramatist
James Joyce photo
James Joyce 191
Irish novelist and poet
Yukio Mishima photo
Yukio Mishima 60
Japanese author
Theodor W. Adorno photo
Theodor W. Adorno 90
German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for …
Alejandro Jodorowsky photo
Alejandro Jodorowsky 33
Filmmaker and comics writer
Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong 181
Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of…
Pierre Bonnard photo
Pierre Bonnard 24
French painter and printmaker
Anna Akhmatova photo
Anna Akhmatova 99
Russian modernist poet
Robert Frost photo
Robert Frost 265
American poet