We all become different readers in how we respond to books, why we need them, what we take from them. We become different in the questions that arise as we read, in the answers that we find, in the degree of satisfaction or unease we feel with those answers...In the hands of a different reader, the same story can be a different story.

But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei

I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable.

Yesterday my daughter said to me, 'My marriage is falling apart.' And now all she can do is watch it falling.

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.

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

Then she told me why a tiger is gold and black. It has two ways. The gold side leaps with its fierce heart. The black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between the trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come. I did not learn to use my black side until after the bad man left me.