There's nothing more true in being a child of a diaspora, a child of immigrants. We're completely new to our parents. We're not something they can ever understand. And it's not as if we are ever going to be accepted. We're accepted as long as we conform to what we are expected to be, and I'm sure that's not any different for anyone else.

I think that distance is good for some people for certain projects. I mean this is sort of a dynamic question. Some projects require more distance than others, some don't require it at all. Sometimes you need it and sometimes you don't.

The only difference between a published and unpublished writer is a tolerance for imperfection.

Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel. This is how you lose her.

Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertibe knowledge that she will never forgive you.

She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life.

Ybon was the one who suggested calling the wait something else. Yeah, like what? Maybe, she said, you could call it life.