“I think since I wrote ‘The Poppy War’ I’ve had this enormous fear of arrested development. I think it is really dangerous for professional success to come to you too early, because then you start thinking, Oh, what I did when I was a child is sufficient. The only way around this is to be deeply critical of everything I’ve done before and try to... See more

“I actually am afraid of being totally happy with my work, because, if you are perfectly satisfied with your abilities, there’s nowhere else to go. You might as well be dead.”

“I think I completely reinvent myself every few years,” Kuang told me. “I have different interests and different expressions and different priorities.”

“I just don’t think I’m very good yet,” she said. “I actually am afraid of being totally happy with my work, because, if you are perfectly satisfied with your abilities, there’s nowhere else to go. You might as well be dead.”