Sure I loved him - too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I'm number one in his life. I'm not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore.

A mother is always the beggining. She is how things begin.

The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.

You can get sucked into the idea that, 'Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should do this. It will look good.' Or 'I'll write like this because it will impress that critic.'

My mother didn't teach me lessons about being Chinese as strongly as she did the notion of who I was as a female.

Sometimes you change to survive, and some things you don't give up, or you're too prideful, and then you think well, what's pride? Is it a good thing? Maybe it's a bad thing. That's what I look at in my life. It's always a question in my life I look at, and I never find the answer, because if I did, probably I wouldn't have books to write.

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.