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.'
Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.
At the beginning of my career as a writer, I felt I knew nothing of Chinese culture. I was writing about emotional confusion with my mother related to our different beliefs. Hers was based in family history, which I didn't know anything about. I always felt hesitant in talking about Chinese culture and American culture.
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.
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.
When I go back and read my journals or fiction, I am always surprised. I may not remember having those thoughts, but they still exist and I know they are mine, and it's all part of making sense of who I am.
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.
I'm open to reading almost anything - fiction, nonfiction - as long as I know from the first sentence or two that this is a voice I want to listen to for a good long while. It has much to do with imagery and language, a particular perspective, the assured knowledge of the particular universe the writer has created.
I recognise why I have such a strong inability to forgive certain people who betray me. It's chiselled in, like a name on a tomb stone.
I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.
My mother believed in curses, karma, good luck, bad luck, feng shui. Her amorphous set of beliefs showed me you can pick and choose the qualities of your philosophy, based on what works for you.
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 is elevated to my favorite.
Luck is in every part of China. Many Chinese stores and restaurants have the word 'luck' in their names. The idea is that, just by using the word 'luck' in names of things, you can attract more of it. I think that's true in my life as well. You attract luck because you go after it.
Mothers have this huge influence, and I feel like they're always teaching us from the day we're born what to be afraid of, what to be cautious of, what we should like, and what we should look like.
I measured my success by how many clients I had and how many billable hours I had.
I felt ashamed of being different and ashamed of feeling that way.
I am an American, steeped in American values. But I know on an emotional level what it means to be of the Chinese culture.
My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.
