Novelists From China

"满纸荒唐言，一把辛酸泪！ 都云作者痴，谁解其中味？"

"今风尘碌碌，一事无成。忽念及当日所有之女子，一一细考较去，觉其行止见识，皆出于我之上。何我堂堂之须眉，诚不若彼裙钗哉？实愧则有余，悔又无益之大无可如何之日也！当此，则自欲将已往所赖天恩祖德，锦衣纨绔之时，饫甘餍肥之日，背父兄教育之恩，负师友规谈之德，以至今日一技无成，半生潦倒之罪，编述一集，以告天下人：我之罪固不免，然闺阁中本自历历有人，万不可因我之不肖，自护己短，一并使其泯灭也。"

"Chinese novelists were afraid to let people know that they could condescend to such a thing as the writing of novels. [...] Because such literature was written for pleasure and self-satisfaction, its creation was determined by a true creative impulse and not by love of money or fame. And because it was ostracized literature in respectable circles, it escaped the banal influence of all classical, conventional standards. So far from giving the author money or fame, the authorship of a novel could endanger a scholar's personal safety. At Kiangyin, the home of Shih Nai-an, the author of All Men Are Brothers, there is still a legend about what Shih did in order to get himself out of trouble. In this legend, Shih was credited with the gift of foreknowledge of events. He had written this novel, and was living in retirement, having refused to serve the new Ming Dynasty. One day the Emperor came with Liu Powen, Shih's classmate and now the Emperor's right-hand man. Liu saw the manuscripts of this novel on his table, and recognizing Shih's superior talent, Liu plotted for his ruin. It was a time when the security of the new dynasty was not yet ensured, and Shih's novel, advocating as it did the common "brotherhood of all men," including the robbers, contained rather dangerous thoughts. So one day, on this basis, Liu petitioned the Emperor to have Shih summoned to the capital for trial. When the warrant came, Shih knew that his manuscripts had been stolen and realized that it would mean his death, so he borrowed five hundred taels from a friend with which to bribe the boatman and asked the latter to make the voyage as slowly as possible. Therefore on the way to Nanking he hurriedly composed a fantastic supernatural novel, the Fengshenpang, in order to convince the Emperor of his insanity. Under this cover of insanity, Shih saved his own life."

"Within the bounds of the four seas, all men are brothers."

"I was very fond of strange stories when I was a child. In my village-school days, I used to buy stealthily the popular novels and historical recitals. Fearing that my father and my teacher might punish me for this and rob me of these treasures, I carefully hid them in secret places where I could enjoy them unmolested. As I grew older, my love for strange stories became even stronger, and I learned of things stranger than what I had read in my childhood. When I was in my thirties my memory was full of these stories accumulated through years of eager seeking. [...] I have sometimes laughingly said to myself that it is not I who have found these ghosts and monsters, but they, the monstrosities themselves, which have found me!"

"One of the most skilled descriptive poets in all Chinese literature."

"A monkey's transformed body weds the human mind. Mind is a monkey—this, the truth profound."

"There was a rock that since the creation of the world had been worked upon by the pure essences of Heaven and the fine savours of Earth, the vigour of sunshine and the grace of moonlight, till at last it became magically pregnant and one day split open, giving birth to a stone egg, about as big as a playing ball. Fructified by the wind it developed into a stone monkey, complete with every organ and limb."

"A tidal wave of trucks and carts moved slowly, inexorably toward the now open gate, bumping and clanging into each other as they squeezed through. The investigator jumped out of the way, and as he stood there observing the passage of this hideous insect, with its countless twisting, shifting sections, he experienced a strange and powerful rage. The birth of that rage was followed by spasms down and around his anus, where irritated blood vessels began to leap painfully, and he knew he was in for a hemorrhoid attack. This time the investigation would go forward, hemorrhoids or no, just like the old days. That thought took the edge off his rage, lessened it considerably, in fact. There's no avoiding the inevitable. Not mass confusion, not hemorrhoids. Only the sacred key to a riddle is eternal. But what was it this time?"

"Finally, she mused that human existence is as brief as the life of autumn grass, so what was there to fear from taking chances with your life?"

"I sometimes think that there is a link between the decline in humanity and the increase in prosperity and comfort. Property and comfort are what people seek, but the costs to character are often terrifying."

"Over decades that seem but a moment in time, lines of scarlet figures shuttled among the sorghum stalks to weave a vast human tapestry. They killed, they looted, and they defended their country in a valiant, stirring ballet that makes us unfilial descendants who now occupy the land pale by comparison."

"A writer should always bravely face life, risking death and mutilation in order to dethrone an emperor."

"“Am I drunk?" he asked Crewcut. "You're not drunk, Boss," Crewcut replied. "How could a superior individual like you be drunk? People around here who get drunk are the dregs of society, illiterates, uncouth people. Highbrow folks, those of the 'spring snow,' cannot get drunk. You're a highbrow, therefore you cannot be drunk.”"

"Ding Gou’er was born in 1941 and married in 1965. It was garden variety marriage, with husband and wife getting along well enough, and producing one child, a darling little boy. He had a mistress who was sometimes adorable and sometimes downright spooky. Sometimes she was like the sun, at other times he moon. Sometimes she was a seductive feline, at other times a mad dog. The idea of divorcing his wife appealed to him, but not enough to actually go through with it. Staying with his mistress was tempting, but not enough to actually do it. Anytime he took sick, he fantasized the onset of cancer, yet was terrified by the thought of the disease; he loved life dearly, and was tired to death of it. He had trouble being decisive. He often stuck the muzzle of his pistol against his temple, then brought it back down; another frequent site of this game was his chest, specifically the area over his heart. One thing and one thing only pleased him without exception or diminution: investigating and solving criminal cases."

"For a writer, talent is everything. Lots of people make a career out of writing, producing many works and knowing exactly what it takes to become a great writer. But they never break into the big time, because they lack one thing: talent, or a sufficient amount of it."

"The relationship between man and liquor embodies virtually all contradictions involved in the process of human existence and development."

"Liquor infatuates me until I am in capable of following rules and regulations. Liquor's character is wild and unrestrained; its temperament is to talk without thinking."

"The fundamental principle of literature is to create something out of nothing and to make up stories. My creation has not been altogether fashioned out of nothing, and is not entirely made up."

"What we are pursuing is beauty, nothing but beauty. It's not true beauty if we didn't create it. Creating beauty with beauty is not true beauty either; real beauty is achieved by transforming the ugly into the beautiful."

"Bullshit bullshit bullshit... after a string of 'bullshit', he spat out spitefully, Can the cliches! That might work with most people, but not with me. Millions of people all around the world have suffered and been mistreated, but those who become men among men are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. It's all a matter of fate, it's in your bones. If you're born with the bones of a beggar, that's what you'll spend you life as."

"As he lat in the relative comfort of a hard-sleeeper cot - relative to a hard-seater, that is - the puffy, balding, beady-eyed, twisted mouth, middle-aged writer Mo Yan wasn't sleepy at all. The overhead lights went out as the train carried him into the night leaving only the dim yellow glare of the floor lights to see by. I know there are many similarities between me and this Mo Yan, but many contradictions as well. I'm a hermit crab, and Mo Yan is the shell I'm occupying. Mo Yan is the rain gear that protects me from storms, a dog hide to ward off the chilled winds, a mask I wear to seduce girls from good families. There are times when I feel that this Mo Yan is a heavy burden, but I can't seem to cast it off, just as a hermit crab cannot rid itself of its shell."

"Unique descriptions of scene play a significant role in the success of fiction, and any first-rate novelists knows enough to keep changing the scenes in which his characters carry out action, since that no only conceals the novelist's shortcomings, but also heightens the reader's enthuisiasm in the reading process"

"Where there's life, death is inevitable. Dying's easy; it's living that's hard. The harder it gets, the stronger the will to live. And the greater the fear of death, the greater the struggle to keep on living."

"Are women really wonderful things? Maybe they are. Yes, women are wonderful things, but when all is said and done, they aren't really “things"."

"我花了很长时间去想，那些界定别人低俗的人，他们到底高雅在哪里，比如说有人花一百块嫖娼是低俗，有人用一百万去玩艺人就是高雅，有人看黄色图片是低俗，有人看红头文件是高雅，有人买个仿真枪是低俗，有人真枪一暴两个头是高雅，有人玩魔兽就是低俗，有人玩模特就是高雅..."

"官方一会说转基因食品无害，一会说要严禁在世博园区里出现转基因的食品以免外国人误食，这是一种自己对自己的歧视么？"

"評論《阿凡達》說，「野蠻強拆對於其他國家的觀眾來說，的確是一件超乎他們想像力的事情，也就是外星球和中國才可能發生。」"

"Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural."

"What is essential is whether it is perceived and not whether it exists. To exist and yet not to be perceived is the same as not exist."

"Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together."

"I hadn't originally intended to do any reading, what if I did read one book more or one book less, whether I read or not wouldn't make a difference, I would still be waiting to get cremated."

"Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty.____ This is pristine natural beauty. it is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations."

"Not knowing what one is looking for is pure agony. Too much analytical thinking, too much logic, too many meanings! Life has no logic, so why does there have to be logic to explain what it means? Also, what is logic? I think I may need to break away from analytical thinking; this is the cause of all my anxieties."

"The creature known as man is of course highly intelligent, he's capable of manufacturing almost anything from rumours to test-tube babies and yet he destroys two to three species every day. This is the absurdity of man."

"It takes a full sixty years for the Cold Arrow Bamboo to go through the cycle of flowering, seeding, dying and for the seeds to sprout, grow, and flower. According to Buddhist teachings on transmigration this would be exactly one kalpa. "Man follows earth, earth follows sky, sky follows the way, the way follows nature, don’t commit actions which go against the basic character of nature, don’t commit acts which should not be committed." "Then what scientific value is there in saving the giant panda?" I ask. "It’s symbolic, it’s a sort of reassurance―people need to deceive themselves. We are preoccupied with saving a species which no longer has the capacity for survival and yet on the other hand we’re changing ahead and destroying the very environment for the survival of the human species itself.""

"Indeed, loft aspirations produce ideas."

"Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience."

"Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell."

"She says she doesn’t know what to do! But he says coldly that he knows what he wants to do, but he can’t."

"They say it only takes an instant to have a dream; a dream can be compressed into hardtack."

"Grandfather, when you saw the tiger were you scared? Bad people scare me, not tigers. Grandfather, have you ever run into bad people? There aren’t many tigers but lots of bad people, only you can’t shoot people."

"A good man never fights with a woman."

"The sand murmurs that it wants to swallow everything."

"I came to the riverbank. The sand underfoot crunches and sounds like my grandmother sighing. She is fond of chattering endlessly, although no-one understands her. If you ask, Grandmother, what did you say? She will look up absentmindedly and, after a while, say, oh, you’re back from school? Are you hungry? There are sweet potatoes in the bamboo steamer. When she chatters it is best not to interrupt; she is talking about when she was a young woman. But if you eavesdrop from behind her chair, she seems to be saying. It’s hidden, it’s hidden, everything is hidden, everything… All these memories are making noises in the sand under your feet."

"The writer is an ordinary man, not a spokesman for the people, and that literature can only be the voice of one individual. Writing that becomes an ode to a country, the standard of a nation, the voice of a party... loses its nature—it is no longer literature. Writers do not set out to be published, but to know themselves. Although Kafka or Pessoa resorted to language, it was not in order to change the world. I, myself, believe in what I call cold literature: a literature of flight for one's life, a literature that is not utilitarian, but a spiritual self-preservation in order to avoid being stifled by society. I believe in a literature of the moment, for the living. You have to know how to use freedom. If you use it in exchange for something else, it vanishes."

"I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly."

"When God talks to humans he doesn’t want humans to hear his voice."

"In the snow outside my window I see a small green frog, one eye blinking and the other wide open, unmoving, looking at me . I know this is God."

"Forget whatever should be forgotten, so that you can remember what should be remembered."