All kinds of mysterious phenomena exist in this world, but answers to most of them have come with advances in scientific knowledge. Love is the sole holdout-nothing can explain it. A Chinese writer by the name of Ah Cheng wrote that love is just a chemical reaction, an unconventional point of view that seemed quite fresh at the time. But if love can be controlled and initiated by means of chemistry, then novelists would be out of a job. So while he may have had his finger on the truth, I'll remain a member of the loyal opposition.

Where there's life, death is inevitable. Dying's easy; it's living that's hard. The harder it gets, the stronger the will to live. And the greater the fear of death, the greater the struggle to keep on living.

I'll continue on the path I've been taking, feet on the ground, describing people's lives, describing people's emotions, writing from the standpoint of the ordinary people.

I am also well aware that literature only has a minimal influence on political disputes or economic crises in the world, but its significance to human beings is ancient.

Possibly because I've lived so much of my life in difficult circumstances, I think I have a more profound understanding of life.

When I write, I try to represent the ordinary person in the pew, which means that, ironically, I'm qualified to write about prayer by being unqualified!

For a country boy, poor as I was, whose constant worry was to be able to have enough to eat, the Army guaranteed one's survival.