I would never describe a cloud as 'fluffy'—in Chinese or in English.

Your characters are always your children. And while you are writing, you're keeping them safe. Now they're ready to go into the world and it's sad. I'm happy with the way the novel came out but all the characters' ending really saddened me.

I would never describe a cloud as 'fluffy'—in Chinese or in English.

Mrs. Pang was once a nanny for me, and she spoils me the way I imagined kindhearted women would spoil an orphan, loving me for whom I am, exactly the opposite of my mother, whose love I have to earn with great effort and with little success.

Horrible that you could write in a language so well, but have nothing meaningful to say.

What a long way it is from one life to another: yet why write if not for that distance; if things can be let go, every before replaced by an after.

Chinese people don't care about freedom, but they do care about justice.