wisdom is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into darkness and dissolve. Her eyes looking back do not reflect anything. I think this to myself even though I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same 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. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore.

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

I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.

Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.

It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.

Fate changes when you change your clothes.

And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.