Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again?

And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every direction.

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.

how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?

I love my daughter. She and I have shared my body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since.

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.

My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didnt always know how to be the nurturing mother that we all expect we should have.