I'm very primitive; I write with a pen.

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.

I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects. That's different from prescribing a way in which a writer should write.

When I'm writing, I really want to satisfy myself. I've got a story that I am working on and struggling with, and I want to tell it the most effective way I can. That's really what I struggle with. And the thought of who may be reading it may be there somewhere in the back of my mind - I'll never say it's not there because I don't know - but it's not really what I'm thinking about.

A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.

...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.