Today, tomorrow," she said. "A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.

Orphans are the only ones who get to choose their fathers, and they love them twice as much.

The next day, she was silent. For breakfast, she murdered an onion and served it raw.

. . . nobody every taught you loyalty . . .

I am a champion standing over the shadow of my former self.

The urge to create a fictional narrative is a mysterious one, and when an idea comes, the writer's sense of what a story wants to be is only vaguely visible through the penumbra of inspiration.

Use your imagination only on the future, never on the present or the past.

A good story feels both surprising and inevitable, fresh and familiar.

[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

But people do things to survive, and then after they survive, they can't live with what they've done.

What good's a captive without her captor?

Patience is the direct antithesis of anger.

when you are about to give up just remember you have only two choices: stay in course or start all over again!

Embrace everything you put your hearts on... for you will surly achieve it

The best stories are about a character who has a goal or noble quest and goes through hell to get it. Do you have a goal or quest like that in real life? Why not?

I've been in the revenge buisness for so long, now that it's over I don't know what to do with the rest of my life.

Patience is a good palfrey, and will carry us a long day.

I think it's kind of strange when people talk about how hyped-up the movie is. It almost sets you up for a bigger fall.

China is completely lacking in self-awareness and as someone who has stepped outside that society, I have a responsibility to write about it as I see it.

Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but they’re not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse.

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.