I've always been a magnet for guilt.

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 are on required reading lists.

Too many good things all seem the same after a while.

Memory feeds imagination.

When you already believe something, how can you suddenly stop? When you are a loyal friend, how can you no longer be one?

To keep false hopes is to prolong misery.

If you are greedy, what is inside you is what makes you always hungry.

But later that day, the streets of Kweilin were strewn with newspapers reporting great Kuomintang victories, and on top of these papers, like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people -- men, women and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead.

I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.

Don't think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then you mind becomes confused.

For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.

If you can't change your fate change your attitude.

A mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place.

How can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?

He has always been politely indifferent. But what's the Chinese word that means indifferent because you can't see any differences?

I was punched breathless by the strongest emotions I have ever felt and they are now stored in my intuition as a writer.

They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along.

On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.

That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.

God, life changes faster than you think.