Strangely enough, there were certain scholars who envied the freedom of obscurity, and who, burdened with certain private sorrows which they dared not tell anyone, or who perhaps wanting only a holiday from the weariness of the sort of art they had themselves created, wrote novels too, under assumed and humble names. And when they did so they put aside pedantry and wrote as simply and naturally as any common novelist. For the novelist believed that he should not be conscious of techniques. He should write as his material demanded.

Did one man write Shui Hu Chuan, or did it grow to its present shape, added to, rearranged, deepened and developed by many minds and many a hand, in different …

A good novelist, or so I have been taught in China, should be above all else tse ran, that is, natural, unaffected, and so flexible and variable as to be wholl…

The Chinese novel was written primarily to amuse the common people. And when I say amuse I do not mean only to make them laugh, though laughter is also one of …

There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.

It's hard for writers to get on with their work if they are convinced that they owe a concrete debt to experience and cannot allow themselves the privilege of …

I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.