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

To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing. -Jing-mei

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

You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying. -An-mei

I learned to make things not matter, to put a seal on my hopes and place them on a high shelf, out of reach. And by telling myself that there was nothing inside those hopes anyway, I avoided the wounds of deep disappointment. The pain was no worse than the quick sting of a booster shot. And yet thinking about this makes me ache again. How is it that as a child I knew I should have been loved more? Is everyone born with a bottomless emotional resevoir?

Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world

Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.