Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with

You write a book and you hope somebody will go out and pay $24.95 for what you've just said. I think books were my salvation. Books saved me from being miserable.

Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.

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.

I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.

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.

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.