Mo Yan

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?

People who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature.

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.

A writer writes what he knows, in ways that are natural to him.

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.

The act of giving voice to this spiritual suffering is, in my view, the sacred duty of the writer.