"I was very fond of strange stories when I was a child. In my village-school days, I used to buy stealthily the popula…"

"There was a rock that since the creation of the world had been worked upon by the pure essences of Heaven and the fin…"

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

"“What happened to her books?” “They went up in smoke. Confiscated by the Red Guards, who promptly burnt them in publi…"

"We had been so unlucky. By the time we had finally learnt to read properly, there had been nothing left for us to read."

"Four-Eyes’s parents probably wanted their son to be a writer. They must have thought it would be good for him to read…"

"Picture, if you will, a boy of nineteen, still slumbering in the limbo of adolescence, having heard nothing but revol…"

"I hadn’t suspected that a tiny glimmer of hope for the future could transform someone so utterly."

"It would evidently take more than a political regime, more than dire poverty to stop a woman from wanting to be well …"

"Inside, piles of books shown in the light of our torch: a company of great Western writers welcomed us with open arms…"