I can never remember things I didn't understand in the first place.

You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?

Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh. -An-mei

I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?

You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort. That is the problem with modernink from a bottle. You do not have to think. You simply write what is swimming on the top of your brain. And the top is nothing but pond scum, dead leaves, and mosquito spawn.

I won't be what I'm not. -Jing-mei

Now they seemed to be in a contest over who could irritate her more, and she sometimes had to remind herself that teenagers had souls