I learned to read when I was three, so I skipped right over picture books and didn't learn to appreciate art in books until much later.

American and Vietnamese characters alike leap to life through the voice and eyes of a tenyearold girl-a protagonist so strong, loving, and vivid I longed to hand her a wedge of freshly cut papaya.

Good humor pokes fun at the powerful — not the weak.

We adults all stay sixteen or so in some corner of the soul.

Research is always a high priority in my fiction. Songs, fashion, politics, television, movies, trends - I try to get those details right.

I hope and pray that despite an unhealed past full of atrocities and deep divisions in the present, God can and will make "the distant near" and a "brother of the stranger" in America's future.

There weren't too many books featuring other cultures and countries when I was growing up as an immigrant kid here in the States.

If you have a chance to see Children Of War, you can watch expert trauma counselors try to help bring healing to young people who have experienced atrocities in conflict.

I think writers can respond by writing about the refugee crisis, by looking at problems faced by migrants, by trying hard to portray them as the human beings that they are.

And in the fearless, reckless pursuit of intimate love, it is not the destination it's the journey.

My heart is really pounding," I said. "That's how you know you're having fun," Margo said.

I'd like to make over Marilyn Manson and just dress him really normally to see what he looks like. That'd be really weird!

Conscience is a just but weak judge. Weakness leaves it powerless to execute its judgment.

It is a part of the intellectual's tragedy that the things he most values about himself and his work are quite unlike those society values in him.

Exercise freaks...are the ones putting stress on the health care system.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

Remember, life is all what you focus on. Learn lessons and keep moving forward towards your goals and dreams... "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

You have to believe in yourself. And you have to, down deep within the bottom of your soul, feel that you can do the job that you've set out to do.