It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.

It means we're looking one way, while following another. We're for one side and also the other. We mean what we say, but our intentions are different.

I felt foolish and tired, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind to discover there was no one there.

I felt like a rich vagabond who had passed through the world paving my way with gold fairy dust, then realizing too late that the path disintegrated as soon as I passed over it.

And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.

It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.

I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?