Pet names are a persistant remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.

...that in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents.

The most compelling narrative, expressed in sentences with which I have no chemical reaction, or an adverse one, leaves me cold.

A bicultural upbringing is a rich but imperfect thing

You remind me of everything that followed.

She had listened to him, partly sympathetic, partly horrified. For it was one thing for her to reject her background, to be critical of her family's heritage, another to hear it from him.

When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.