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.

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

When you lose your face..., it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it.

On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.

Shanghainese people are good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality, Shanghai personality becomes part of yours.

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

Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind -- poom! -- North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.