No one in my family was a reader of literary fiction. So, I didn't have encouragement, but I didn't have discouragement, because I don't think anybody knew what that meant.

Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.

How I saw in her my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones... Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain. This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bones. The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. 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 before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength..."strongest wind cannot be seen."

I have always known a thing before it happens.

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.

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