It is as if the angels had just done their laundry and, owning no other wealth than love, they are always clothed in the same light, worn transparent from so many washings.

Life in society is when everyone is there and no one is present. Life in society is when everyone obeys what no one wants. Writing is a way of escaping this impoverishment, a variation on solitude like love or gambling – a principle of insubordination, a virtue of childhood.

Nothing is owed to us in life, not even the innocence of a blue sky. Great art is the art of thankfulness for the abundance of every moment. Writing is a Chinese variant of this thankfulness, a courtesy to life in its cloak of nothing, lined with love.

She tells you about herself, that is, about the people she loves. We are made of that, we are made of the people we love, nothing else. However reclusive our life might be, lost in hills seared with wind, it is never closer than in a cluster of beloved faces, in the thoughts that go out to them, in the breath that travels from them to us, from us to them.