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.