Cao Xueqin

"Ostensibly, [Cao Xueqin] has written a Taoist or Zen Buddhist comedy, showing mankinds hopeless involvement in desire and pain and the liberation of at least a few select individuals besides the hero. But only ostensibly, because the reader cannot but feel that the reality of suffering as depicted in the novel stirs far deeper layers of his being than the reality of Taoist wisdom; he cannot but respond to the authors vast sympathy for young and old, innocent and scheming, self-denying and self-indulgent. [...] In devoting his creative career to tracing the history of Baoyu and the Jia clan, Cao Xueqin is therefore the tragic artist caught between nostalgia for, and tormented determination to seek liberation from, the world of red dust."

"Cao Xueqin is a master of language. His prose is so exquisite and aesthetically pleasing that it almost attains perfection in every way."

"Its a tragedy that a lot of people know more about Shakespeare than about Cao Xueqin."

"Wherever he was, he made it spring."

"Proud bones such as yours the world finds rare; These are the crags of a true eccentric. You wield your brush like a roof beam, propelled by wine; From out your bosom pour rugged rocks."

"The idea that the worldlings reality is illusion and that life itself is a dream from which we shall eventually awake is of course a Buddhist one; but in Xueqins hands it becomes a poetical means of demonstrating that his characters are both creatures of his imagination and at the same time the real companions of his golden youth. To that extent it can be thought of as a literary device rather than as a deeply held philosophy, though it is really both."

"Tsao Hsüeh-chins forte is the unhurried exploration of every nuance of a situation."

"满纸荒唐言，一把辛酸泪！ 都云作者痴，谁解其中味？"

"今风尘碌碌，一事无成。忽念及当日所有之女子，一一细考较去，觉其行止见识，皆出于我之上。何我堂堂之须眉，诚不若彼裙钗哉？实愧则有余，悔又无益之大无可如何之日也！当此，则自欲将已往所赖天恩祖德，锦衣纨绔之时，饫甘餍肥之日，背父兄教育之恩，负师友规谈之德，以至今日一技无成，半生潦倒之罪，编述一集，以告天下人：我之罪固不免，然闺阁中本自历历有人，万不可因我之不肖，自护己短，一并使其泯灭也。"

"Both William Shakespeare and Cao Xueqin created more than 400 characters in their works. However, Shakespeares cast of characters is distributed in thirty some plays and a few categories, such as the nobility and the servants, including the walk-on parts in different plays often with stereotypical personalities, while all of Caos characters are tidily organized in one book yet every single one has a distinctive personality, a unique status and his or her own language, and none of them could be replaced by or mistaken for anyone else."