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 β but by the minute.
Iris ChangRead
The spoken word vanished with the wind. Likewise, the unrecorded life disappears as if it never existed.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our spoken words and unrecorded lives fade away, leaving little trace behind.
Iris Chang's quote emphasizes the impermanence of spoken communication and lived experiences that are not documented. It highlights the importance of recording our lives and words, suggesting that without preservation, our existence may ultimately be forgotten, much like whispers carried away by the wind.
Themes
MemoryImpermanenceRecordingCommunicationExistence
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a speech about the importance of writing and documenting personal stories.
More from Iris Chang
All quotes βYour first duty as a writer is to write to please yourself. And you have no duty towards anyone else.
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For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.
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Racism is always there underneath, but usually it is exploited in these times of economic crisis, and it's hard to find out when one slides into another.
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Almost all people have this potential for evil, which would be unleashed only under certain dangerous social circumstances.
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