You don't order someone to polish your shoes one day and call them 'sister' the next.

For you, a thousand times over

In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.

I remember reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' in high school in 1983. My family had immigrated to the U.S. three years before, and I had spent the better part of the first two years learning English. John Steinbeck's book was the first book I read in English where I had an 'Aha!' moment, namely in the famed turtle chapter.

It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.

For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.

The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he had said, clean down the middle. Clean down the middle. Like a harelip.