There are a lot of people who think that's what's needed to be successful is always being right, always being careful, always picking the right path.

After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember?

If I look upon my whole life, I cannot think of another time when I felt more comfortable: when I had no worries, fears, or desires, when my life seemed as soft and lovely as lying inside a cocoon of rose silk.

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

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.

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?

I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.