I would never describe a cloud as 'fluffy'—in Chinese or in English.

Every place is a good place, only time goes wrong.

Even the most innocent person, when cornered, is capable of a heartless crime.

To write about a struggle amidst the struggling: one must hope that the muddling will end someday.

What a long way it is from one life to another: yet why write if not for that distance; if things can be let go, every before replaced by an after.

A real dreamer must have a mutual trust with time.

She wonders if this is what people call falling in love, the desire to be with someone for every minute of the rest of her life so strong that sometimes she is frightened of herself.

Only the smaller fish pay for the goverment's face-lift. The big ones - they just become bigger and fatter.

What is revolution except a systematic way for one species to eat another alive?

The decaying that had dragged on for too long had only turned tragedy into nuisance; death, when it strikes, better completes its annihilating act on the first try.

Regarding heroism, I grew up in a culture where you learn about heroes and heroines all the time. In a way, when you call someone a hero or heroine, it's the same as calling them a villain.

Language has infinite power and as long as there’s Romeo and Juliet or Laila and Majnu or You and Me, as long as there’s love in the world, language will find a way to cast its spell.

His guilt swelled up, churning like a paddle wheel in his stomach. He wanted desperately to flee. How do you escape something that comes from inside? The revenant, he knew, searched for him.

Every work has the bad side, and people will be mean to you, and when you're young, you don't know how to defend yourself.

[When I happen to] read interviews where people are such pros and they come out looking so good, [it comes off as] a little smug or something.

You have to be professional and think about the future.

Margo's beauty was a kind of sealed vessel of perfection--uncracked and uncrackable.

Nobody expects you to exhibit godlike strength, excepting maybe yourself.

A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of rumour. [Lat., Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit.]

When I got drafted by Minnesota, and I think I said this a couple weeks ago, I think I felt obligated to bring a Super Bowl to Minnesota.

That was the very centre of his genius - he invented things that anyone could have thought of, and men who can invent things that anyone could have thought of are very rare men.