The self was a very strange concept to me until I came to America, and my child was born with that entitlement, and that just thrilled me.

I think about giving up. I almost do.

There have been 50 or 60 books written about Empress Orchid, but none of them bothered to really examine the period in China when she lived. I was taught that she was evil; it's in all the textbooks.

I was happy not to be in his place. He could command my death, but not his. But then, what kind of power was his? He was a prisoner of himself.

My goal was to do anything that would lead to a job. I know that writing would not lead to a job. It's too fancy for me. My biggest goal was to be an office receptionist, answer phones. I didn't expect to go beyond that.

Do you know who Karl Marx is? He is this strange little man, long dead, who lived his narrow little life, and somehow managed by the power of his wayward brain to lay hold upon millions of human lives!

The sun doesn't just hang on one family's tree