One easy mistake to make with the first novel is to expand the short story. Some things are better as a story; you cannot dilute things into a novel.….

I always tell my students to go back after a hundred pages and rewrite from the beginning. It's really harder if you've already finished four hundred….

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

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

A real dreamer must have a mutual trust with time..

Even the most innocent person, when cornered, is capable of a heartless crime..

Overall there may be less censorship in America than in China, but censorship and self-censorship are not only from political pressure, but also pres….

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….

Almost all of the stories in The Matchmaker, the Apprentice, and the Football Fan are told in the first person, yet, depending on the angle and dista….

I think our eyes are trained to look for what we want to see..

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 poli….

But loneliness is as delusive a belief in the pertinence of the world as is love: in choosing to feel lonely, as in choosing to love, one carves a sp….

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

She wonders if this is what people call falling in love, the desire to be with someone for every minute of the rest of her life so strong that someti….

The boy will remain a son and never become a father. He will be forgotten by the crowd once his blood is rinsed clean from the ground; his sister wil….

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

What is revolution except a systematic way for one species to eat another alive?.

Everybody contributes something to the system, and everybody suffers from the system..

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

In China, your freedom is always limited, but this limitation applies to almost everyone. If someone does injustice to you, though, you have to find ….

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….