When a man gets power, even his chickens and dogs rise to heaven.

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.

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.

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.

I live locally, I eat regionally but I think internationally.

I'm not perfect but I'll be the creator of perfection.

I hold no candle for George Osborne whatsoever. He has no strategic skills, is a hopeless chancellor, has no idea how most people have to live and his policies are failing and hurting millions.

The man who worships mere wealth is a snob.

Our seniors' retirement should never rely on the bull of political promises or the bear of the market.

There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.

My father, who had previously been a civil engineer, died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918.

Architecture, in itself, at the end of the day, is a rational profession.

I’m a much nicer person, much more laid-back and relaxed, not serious like they show me.

People are still emulating the old fashioned criminal.