When the Chinese first came to San Francisco, they were actually welcomed by the mayor and they had special ceremonies for them-again this is when their colony was very small, only a few Chinese.

After working as a journalist I went to a writing program at Johns Hopkins. It was interesting because it was neither journalistic nor historical, but it emphasized writing style, and afterwards I was asked to write my first book.

If the conditions were right there could be great acceptance. Often it is only when they pose an economic or political threat that it turns really ugly.

Your first duty as a writer is to write to please yourself. And you have no duty towards anyone else.

Almost all people have this potential for evil, which would be unleashed only under certain dangerous social circumstances.

I may attempt a novel. I think that no matter what you write, it requires being honest with oneself, and you have to pull yourself out of the whirlwind of daily life.

The spoken word vanished with the wind. Likewise, the unrecorded life disappears as if it never existed.