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“For so long, the past had been a wound still open. Now he could run his finger along the mark those years had left. Scars were nothing but tissue, keratin, a reminder of what the body could endure.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“I want to think that I'm Chinese and American both, but depending on the country, I feel like I'm not enough of either.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Once, he had thought diaspora was loss, longing, all the empty spaces in him filled with want.... But diaspora was this, too: two cultures that could both be his, history that was waiting to be made.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“That was the way of the world: if you were a woman, then you had a job to do, and that was to pretend to love everyone else walking all over your body, leaving imprints on your face. You were supposed to crave it, to beg for more.”
― Julia Bartz, The Writing Retreat