“Why is contemporary China short of works that speak directly? Because we writers cannot speak directly, or rather we can only speak in an indirect way.Why does contemporary China lack good works that critique our current situation? Because our current situation may not be critiqued. We have not only lost the right to criticise, but the courage to do so.Why is modern China lacking in great writers? Because all the great writers are castrated while still in the nursery.”

“Why do we writers write? Is it because we have something to say, or is it because we just do? I write because I can, because I just do, and because I am a writer, and so I write.”

“We writers are the worst kind of cruel,Because we worship our own stories and poems,And what human can compete with metaphors?Writers stand still and yet vacate our homesInside our fantasies. We are word-whores,With libidos and egos of balsa wood.We’d have sex with our books, if only we could.”

“A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.”

“People there only dream that it is China, because if you are Chinese you can never let go of China in your mind.”

“Because we were both writers and both worked at home our days were filled with the sound of each other's voice”