I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn’t understand her English, because she was Chinese.

So much of history is mystery. We don’t know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or...

I’d like to be more forgiving. There are times when I’ve had a hard time forgiving people who have betrayed me.

People think it’s a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer’s. But in my mother’s case, it’s different. My mother has been unhappy all her life. For the first time in her life, she’s happy.

Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate. Isn’t that true?

He simply translated what was in LuLing’s heart: her better intentions, her hopes.

I write because I know that one day I will die, and thus I should experience as many deliberate observations, careful thoughts, wild ideas, and deep emotions as I can before that day occurs.

My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author...

What do you think was the first sound to become a word, a meaning?…I imagined two people without words, unable to speak to each other. I imagined the need: The color of the sky that...

Now they seemed to be in a contest over who could irritate her more, and she sometimes had to remind herself that teenagers had souls

I didn’t fear failure. I expected failure.

You can’t stay in the dark for too long. Something inside you starts to fade, and you become like a starving person, crazy-hungry for light.

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.

We are the kind of people who obsess over one word… but we have only one shot to get it right in concert. It was hard the first time I practiced with them. I was...

Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.

It’s a luxury being a writer because all you ever think about is life.

I am an American, steeped in American values. But I know on an emotional level what it means to be of the Chinese culture.

Maybe all Americans who suffer from melancholy act as if they have gone mad. But I truly thought he might throw himself in the river, and I don’t want his ghost visiting to keep telling...

Even when I worked in that world, I still wanted love so strong that the man would have no interest in another woman. Maybe you will always be incapable of giving that kind of love....

Was there ever a great true love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections?…I could not let myself become that unmindful. Isn’t that what love is – losing your...

I like to go somewhere where I learn something I didn’t know before, like the Dry Tortugas between Florida and Cuba.

But you can’t stay in the dark for so long. Something inside of you starts to fade and you become like a starving person, crazy-hungry for light.

It’s both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.

She said ‘I’m by commission. You don’t have to pay anything until you sell anything.’ I said, ‘Well fine. You want to be my agent and not make anything.’ I thought, ‘Boy, is she dumb.’

And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see...

That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is...

My mother said I was a clingy kid until I was about four. I also remember that from the age of eight she and I fought almost every day.

I wanted to capture what language ability tests could never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.

Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.

Writing is an extreme privilege but it’s also a gift. It’s a gift to yourself and it’s a gift of giving a story to someone.

I don’t steer clear of genres. I simply haven’t steered myself toward some of them.

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A’s from the time I was in kindergarten.

I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.

It’s not that we had no heart or eyes for pain. We were all afraid. We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish for something already lost. Or to prolong what was...

Free time was the most precious time, when you should be doing what you loved, or at least slowing down enough to remember what made your life worthwhile and happy.

I think I’ve always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than for success.

Can I tell my daughter that I loved her father? This was the man who rubbed my feet at night. He praised the food that I cooked. He cried honestly when I brought out trinkets...

After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember?

I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what’s comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with...

My writing often contains souvenirs of the day – a song I heard, a bird I saw – which I then put into the novel.

Isn’t hate merely the result of wounded love?

What happened to Violet was terrible, and I’m not saying fate happens without blame. But when fate turns out well, everyone should forget the bad road that got us here.

It’s a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.

Entonces debes enseñarle esta misma lección a mi hija. Cómo perder la inocencia pero no la esperanza. Cómo reír eternamente.

Quiero que nuestro amor sea tan grande que nos duela por dentro

I would never require anyone to read any book. That seems antithetical to why we read – which is to choose a book for our personal reasons. I always shudder when I’m told my books...

Kehidupan hanyalah ilusi yang harus kau lepaskan. Ketika makin tua, kau menyadari perubahan posisimu sehubungan dengan kematian. Di masa muda topik kematian adalah filosofis, di usia tiga puluhan topik itu tidak bisa diterima, dan di...

What is the past but what we choose to remember?