"I have only [written the Water Margin] to fill up my spare time, and give pleasure to myself; [...] I have written it so that the uneducated can read it as well as the educated [...]. Alas! Life is so short that I shall not even know what the reader thinks about it, but still I shall be satisfied if a few of my friends will read it and be interested. Also I do not know what I may think of it in my future life after death, because then I may not able to even read it. So why think anything further about it?"
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Variant translation by Pearl S. Buck: "Alas, I was born to die! How can I know what those who come after me and read my book will think of it? I cannot even know what I myself, born into another incarnation, will think of it. I do not even know if I myself afterwards can even read this book. Why therefore should I care?" (All Men are Brothers, 1933; p. xiii)
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Shi Nai'an
Shi Nai'an (Chinese: 施耐庵, ca. 1296–1372) was a Chinese writer from Suzhou. Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, is attributed to him.
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