I have always known a thing before it happens.
To save myself, I destroyed another, and in doing so, I destroyed myself.
That was a wonderful period in my life. I mean, I didn’t become an artist, but somebody let me do something I loved. What a luxury, to do something you love to do.
It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.
I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.
My mother had a look on her face that I’ll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.
Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all – all the Englishes I grew up with.
Your only shame is to have shame.
And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every direction.
I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?
Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.
And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.
I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child...
And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.
I began to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.
Among writers, if you don’t have a therapist, it’s like saying you don’t keep a journal or use the thesaurus. It’s a natural accompaniment.
I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable.
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.
I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.
I love my daughter. She and I have shared my body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since.