I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.

Yet part of me also thinks the whole idea makes perfect sense. The three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on the plane together, sitting side by side, lifting off, moving West to reach the East.

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.

It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.

I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.

Fate changes when you change your clothes.