And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.

I've always been a magnet for guilt.

Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.

Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?

My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances. We lived in San Francisco's Chinatown. Like most of the other Chinese children who played in the back alleys of restaurants and curio shops, I didn't think we were poor. My bowl was always full, three five-course meals every day, beginning with a soup full of mysterious things I didn't want to know the names of.