What has marked Chinese society is its level of cruelty, not just revolutions and wars. We ought to reject it totally, otherwise in another upheaval there will be further cruelty.

If you have love, even plain cold water is sweet.

While I was writing Wild Swans I thought the famine was the result of economic mismanagement but during the research I realised that it was something more sinister.

I think because of their terrible past, particularly this century, the Chinese have come to accept cruelty more than many other people, which is something I feel very unhappy about

I remember when my mother pointed to a stone, and she said this was the kind of stone people used to place on the feet of the baby girls to stop them trying to climb away and unbind their feet.

China is more prosperous than before. The people have better lives but they are not happy and confident because the scars are still there.

When I was in China, Mao was Chairman, and parents were terrified to tell their children anything that differed from the party line in case the children repeated it and endangered the whole family.

When he asked my grandmother if she would mind being poor, she said she would be happy just to have her daughter and himself: 'If you have love, even plain water is sweet.

Although my book is banned I am still allowed to go to China and travel. There is no longer the kind of control that Mao used to have-there have been deep fundamental changes in society.

I would love mainland Chinese to read my book. There is a Chinese translation which I worked on myself, published in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many copies have gone into China but it is still banned.

At the age of fifteen my grandmother became the concubine of a warlord general.

I don't expect forgiveness.I only expect acceptance.

Since 1857 we know what we are capable of, And Since 1947 we know what is at Stake.

There's something nice and valuable and wonderful about the suspense and the classic horror that doesn't just crutch on blood and the almost pornographic view of fear.

I'm as obsessive with health as I was with destruction.

Now, the people of Florida can't stand him [Marci Rubio]. He couldn't get elected dogcatcher.

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years, and he could have it earlier.

To help people believe they can achieve victory, put them in a position to experience small successes.

I’d like to see a forklift lift a crate of forks. It’d be so damn literal! You are using that machine to it’s exact purpose!

It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man's deeper nature is soon found out.

Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.