Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.

In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.

I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn't understand her English, because she was Chinese.

I have loved works of fiction precisely for their illusions, for the author's sleight-of-hand in showing me the magic, what appeared in the right hand but not in the left.

We are living in a world where everything is false. The society is like bright paint applied on top of rotten wood.

And now I have to stop. Because every time I remember this, I have to cry a little by myself. I don't know why something that made me so happy then feels so sad now. Maybe that is the way it is with the best memories.