I don't really do themes. I might accidentally, but themes are an emergent phenomena of the writing of the book, of just trying to get a story out there.

Even in my side of the world, I've been in publishing for what, 25 or 26 years, and it's gone from being a gentlemen's club to being a few big players, and it's very corporatised.

Torture is such a slippery slope; as soon as you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons.

Most mainstream male fiction is littered with heroines, and female characters are basically so great, you want to fall in love with them.

I had no education whatsoever, and my mother said, 'Oh, you'll get a much better education in life.' I did to some extent, though I always wish I could have tried it.

Everything has to do with education: If you educate the girls, you educate the family, the community, and society, in general.

The Da Jing street market is little more than a few narrow intersections, barely six blocks long. But for a visitor, it is a living, breathing education in Shanghai cuisine, a style distinguished by its thick savory sauces spiked with sugar and soy sauce.

THE rich possess ample means to realize any theory they may chuse to adopt in the education of their children, regardless of the cost; but it is not so with him whose Subsistence is derived from industry.