Best 7 quotes of Xinran on MyQuotes

Everybody says women are like water. I think it's because water is the source of life, and it adapts itself to its environment. Like women, water also gives of itself wherever it goes to nurture life.

No one like crying, but tears water our souls. So, perhaps my thanks should be to allow you to cry for the Chinese women in my books.

The way we understand both our present and our future depends on what we have lived through.

I have interviewed more than three hundred Chinese women, exploring the ways in which their lives and loves have been defined largely by external forces. It didn’t take long to notice a clear pattern in how these forces changed according to their age – women from my grandparents’ generation were often forced into arranged marriages by their parents, while it was political turmoil that shaped the love lives of my parents’ generation. As for women of my own generation, money seemed to be the main driving force behind their search for a husband.

The more you read, the more you want to know, and so the more questions you have.

This generation possessed freedom and material wealth their elders could only dream of, and they looked for the miracle of love in the void between Chinese and Western culture. They created idealised versions of themselves on the internet, and pushed the boundaries of what they thought love could be. But as this generation grew accustomed to the loneliness of living without brothers and sisters, the family could no longer be considered the backbone of Chinese culture.

Writing is a kind of repository and can help create a space for the accommodation of new thoughts and feelings. If you don't write these stories down, your heart will be filled up and broken by them.