And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.

You have to be your own person. You can't let people's opinions determine how you think about yourself. There's a difference between identity and self-identity.

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

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.

Don't think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then you mind becomes confused.

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.