If you're trapped in a room, and nobody is coming to save you, what can you do? You have to bang on the walls and break the windows. You have to climb out and save yourself. It's obvious, Li-ling, that crying doesn't help a person live.

Madeleine Thien
About This Quote

The quote above is a metaphor. The words, "If you're trapped in a room," are intended to make us think of life itself as a kind of prison. We all have the ability to escape the prison called life; we just need to make ourselves aware of it. As long as we're in the cell, we're in danger and we can't move about freely.

If we can't move about freely, we don't really have freedom at all. The only thing that keeps us from escaping is that we don't realize we're trapped in the first place.

Source: Do Not Say We Have Nothing

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