...go in the direction your head is pointed in.

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.

Even if you know where you are going and what problems you have to solve, you may only know the nearest tasks and you may not understand completely all of your tasks

Don't treat me like I am something that happened to you.

Had there been a reporter along with Lieutenant Calley when he massacred those people in Vietnam, I think that probably wouldn't have happened.

The main thrust of the Social Security reform was to get the benefit structure in line with the realities of the Trust Funds.

They drove a long way through the snowy woods, till they came to the town of Pepin. Mary and Laura had seen it once before, but it looked different now.

Anybody who's in the dressing room after the show always says, "Oh, my God, I was kind of worried that the show was going to be sleepy because you were half asleep, yawning, and not really present."

Those who attempts to explain a picture are on the wrong track most of the time.

Something happens, Blue thinks, and then it goes on happening forever. It can never be changed, can never be otherwise.

The poor are not the people with less, which is less desirable