I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.
I have a writer’s memory which makes everything worse than maybe it actually was.
Memory feeds imagination.
I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.
I feel I’ve always been writing about self-identity. How do we become who we are? So I’m just writing from experience what’s concerned me.
That is the nature of endings, it seems. They never end. When all the missing pieces of your life are found, put together with glue of memory and reason, there are more pieces to be found.
That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
Libraries are the pride of the city.
You have to be your own person. You can’t let people’s opinions determine how you think about yourself. There’s a difference between identity and self-identity.
It’s a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.
How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?
I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.
You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.
It’s both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.
You see what power is holding someone else’s fear in your hand and showing it to them.
No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.
Sure I loved him – too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I’m number one in his life. I’m not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore.
Shanghainese people are good negotiators, they’re very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that – very competitive. That becomes part of your personality, Shanghai personality becomes part of yours.
Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.