They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along.

Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh. -An-mei

Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.

To save myself, I destroyed another, and in doing so, I destroyed myself.

We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. -Suyuan

There's no hope. There's no reason to keep trying. Because you must. This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate. This is your life, what you must do.

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.