I'm a reader of Chinese literature, I like their films, but also: I've had great difficulty getting my work published in China; very little of it has been published there. The first two attempts to have all of my work published, for instance, were refused without any reason ever being given.

Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.

That's the trouble with you sad-city types: a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it's real.

The glamour of being forbidden must not be underestimated.

What can't be cured must be endured.

Things, even people have a way of leaking into each other like flavours when you cook.

I don't read my books, I write them. Once I've finished the many years it usually takes me to write them, I can't bear to read them, because I've spent too long with them already. I'm not advertising them very well, am I?