It is a Chinese tradition that everyone has to be in everyone else's life.

Some people in China don't look at freedom of speech as an abstract ideal, but more as a means to an end.

Why do I write about China? That is a very good question. I think there are questions about China that I haven't been able to answer. The reason I write is that there are questions to which I want to find answers - or I want to find questions beyond those questions.

You can write about a country without taking a stand, but you cannot write about a country without noting that there's history, and that there's politics going on. To me, that's the same if you write about America. You don't have to write about politics, but the politics have to be present in the characters.

To write about a struggle amidst the struggling: one must hope that the muddling will end someday.

Only the smaller fish pay for the goverment's face-lift. The big ones - they just become bigger and fatter.

Every place is a good place, only time goes wrong.