“Ethnic divisions can definitely be exacerbated by a lack of natural resources, but those tensions become violent when people manipulate them for their own political gain.”

“Peoria is such a seemingly quintessential American city, and I had always wanted to draw on that in either my fiction or in nonfiction. The Midwest is also a landscape that I have always bee...”

“Personally, it's a comfort and happiness to know that my work is taken seriously and is not marginalised and put in a box of ethnic immigrant writing in America.”

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me...”

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.”

“So many books, so little time.”

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”