"The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them."

The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer.

You know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know that if you don’t have a pencil and pad by the bed, it will be completely gone by the next morning. Sometimes it’s important to wake up and stop dreaming. When a really great dream shows up, grab it.

I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, ‘Is he as crazy as I am?’ I don’t need that question answered.

I cannot choose the best。 The best chooses me。

作家必须是个人对抗集体的捍卫者。

永远要走“正道”，它并不拥挤。

——在上海中国国民党本部会议演说，1920年11月4日