Better to be disliked than pitied.
As a historically voracious reader - pre-baby, I averaged a book every week or two, and when I was a kid, I'd routinely read a book a day - I never understood how some people could not read. When I heard people say they didn't have time to read, in my head, I simultaneously pitied and ridiculed them: there was always time to read.
The idea of somebody suffering is really painful to every human. In our collective language, we all too often see those who are suffering as a victim to be pitied, to be feared, and even sometimes to be despised. I want to redirect that narrative.
Often, we have only focused on what we've done wrong as a nation. Of course we should face our sins and our mistakes. But if we get stuck there and don't focus on where we've come from and how we've overcome those sins and mistakes, we are truly to be pitied.
Many intellectuals feel themselves to be Supermen who are spokesmen for the people. But in my opinion, they're to be pitied. Under Mao's dictatorship, these poor sheep suffered the same fate as everyone else.
We are so used to seeing women as victims of war to be pitied rather than survivors of war to be respected.
It wasn't like I was clinically depressed, but I was so down. I think I was probably depressed. Nothing went my way since college, and I put my head down and kind of pitied myself. That wasn't the right way to go.