Nothing more exhilarating ... than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

We all have a blind spot and it's shaped exactly like us.

I think a lot of the most interesting immigrant writing involves stepping outside of that old, dreary binary. Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker is a great example. Same goes for Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior.

You can't find intimacy - you can't find home - when you're always hiding behind masks. Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You running the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.

Nothing more exhilarating ... than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn't mean you don't have them.

The only difference between a published and unpublished writer is a tolerance for imperfection.