We survive in adversity and perish in ease and comfort.

At first, writing actually felt the more arduous of the two activities. But in order to reach cultural-center nirvana, I forced myself to continue. I was young then and it was no easy matter to persuade my bottom to maintain such constant intimacy with my chair.

Three or four years ago, a city education bureau announced a new measure to raise the quality of local teachers and enable graduating high school seniors to be more competitive in the university entrance examination.

We were fishers of memory waiting on the banks of time and waiting for the past to swallow the date.

It was just as summer arrived that I met an old man named Fugui.

My emotional state then was cramped and confined, like a room with tightly sealed windows and doors: although love’s footsteps could be heard outside the room, I felt they were steps heading somewhere else – until one day when the steps came to a halt and the bell rang.

You know how men are... always peering into the pot even when they’re eating out of the bowl.

As the black night descended from the heavens, I knew that in the blink of an eye I would witness the death of the sunset. I saw the exposed and firm chest of the vast earth; its pose was one of calling, of beckoning. And just as a mother beckons her children, so the earth beckoned the coming of night.

It’s better to live an ordinary life. If you go on striving for this and that, you’ll end up paying with your life.

Your life is given to you by your parents. If you don’t want to live, you have to ask them first.