During my first photo shoot, I was unhappy because they put so much makeup on me and straightened my hair. I've been stubborn ever since.
A finished person is a boring person.
Well, I'd like to think I am, and I'd also like to think that we're all having a lot more fun getting older than we pretend. It was interesting to me when I first started working on this book that I'd mentioned that I was writing a memoir about aging and everybody would moan and groan and carry on.
I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that this is not a dress rehersal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.
Not writing at all leads to nothing.
Ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.
When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.
But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.
My mother has a very big family in Shanghai, so I have, like, almost 40 cousins, so we stayed together all the time. So by the time I get to Hong Kong, I become the only child and the only one surrounded by adults, you know.
You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms.
On her daughter Melissa: The only time she really cried is when I sat her down and told her that she was not adopted.