You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.

A thing that happens to migrants is that they lose many of the traditional things which root identity, which root the self.

Mo Yan is the Chinese equivalent of the Soviet Russian apparatchik writer Mikhail Sholokhov: a patsy of the regime.

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.

I do think there was a period there when my sanity was under intense pressure, and I didn't know what to say or do or how to act. I was literally living from day to day.

We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love.

You can't have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.