Although my book is banned I am still allowed to go to China and travel. There is no longer the kind of control that Mao used to have-there have been deep fundamental changes in society.

...go in the direction your head is pointed in.

I always wanted to be a writer.

My grandmother's feet had been bound when she was two years old. Her mother...first wound a piece of white cloth about twenty feet long round her feet, bending all the toes except the big toe inward and under the sole. Then she placed a large stone on top to crush the arch.

I remember when my mother pointed to a stone, and she said this was the kind of stone people used to place on the feet of the baby girls to stop them trying to climb away and unbind their feet.

I like to have Chinese furniture in my home as a constant and painful reminder of how much has been destroyed in China. The contrast between the beauty of the past and the ugliness of the modern is nowhere sharper than in China.

In spring 1989...I saw the buildup of demonstrations from Chengdu to Tiananmen Square. It struck me that fear had been forgotten to such an extent that few of the millions of demonstrators perceived danger. Most seemed to be taken by surprise when the army opened fire.