I think we really forget how connected we are to the past.

I tell my students that being a writer is like being a member of a medieval guild and that what we are doing is very subversive and very important.

I write line by line, by the sound and the weight and the music of the words.

I work via the high-tension-wire method, which is maybe going for long periods without writing while the tension builds up - when am I going to write this, am I going to be able to write this, what is this image about - and I'm thinking about it all the time, but I'm not really inside it, inside the writing.

I didn't grow up with musical influences in my family.

I would not call my family 'traditional Chinese.' We were more what I would term the Colonial Chinese.

Through devotion, your family cares become more peaceful, mutual love between husband and wife becomes more sincere, the service we owe to the prince more faithful, and our work, no matter what it is, becomes more pleasant and agreeable.

That's just my family's mentality. We are a very loving, hugging and kissing kind of family. And we grew up in a church atmosphere and still have that atmosphere. There is no negativity.