People there only dream that it is China, because if you are Chinese you can never let go of China in your mind.

I felt foolish and tired, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind to discover there was no one there.

With hope, a mind is always free.

But later that day, the streets of Kweilin were strewn with newspapers reporting great Kuomintang victories, and on top of these papers, like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people - men, women and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead.

Clichés are static, the emotion behind them long spent. If you are tempted to use them, here is a saying of my mother’s: Fang pi bu-cho, cho pi bu-fang. Basically that translates to: "Loud farts don’t stink, and the really smelly ones don’t make a sound." In other words: When you’re full of beans, you just blow a lot of hot air. If you want to have a real impact, be deadly but silent. Oh, also recognize the difference between a bad cliché and a good quotation. My mother’s saying is a good quotation. You should use it often.

You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.

My mother said I was a clingy kid until I was about four. I also remember that from the age of eight she and I fought almost every day.