“Everyone has to die. I'm not particularly scared about it. What really frightens me is that if I go before my wife, I will leave her alone, and vice versa. The ideal would be to die together.”

“[People] always tell me, “Weiwei, leave the nation, please.” Or “Live longer and watch them die.” Either leave, or be patient and watch how they die. I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Let me die in my footsteps before I go under the ground.”

“If you’re really going to die on me, you could at least rub my neck before you go.”

“I'll never be happy. I believe I'll die alone. I would want it that way. I've been a loner all my life with my secrets and my pain. I'm really lost, but I'm trying to find myself. I'm really a sad, pathetic case. My whole life has been a waste. I've been a failure. I just want to escape.”

“When I die of heart failure the next time you frighten me like that, you can put that on my gravestone—‘I didn’t mean to startle her.”

“Don't leave me alone!
A cry in the night,
Of anguish heart-stiking,
Of soul-killing fright.

Live for my living
Or else I must die
Don't leave me alone.
A world heard that cry.”

“You're not going to die, are you sir?' he said.
'Of course I am. Everyone is. That's what being alive is all about.”

“Look at her -- I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way -- what bliss.”

“I thought, “I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There’s no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it’s sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. That dream of going on bicycles to see a waterfall framed in summer leaves—it was not for the likes of me. All that can happen now is that one foul, humiliating sin will be piled on another, and my sufferings will become only the more acute. I want to die. I must die. Living itself is the source of sin.”