After his sisters were taken away, the Japanese occupying force sent my grandfather to Imperial Schools. My first language is Japanese, he tells me. … - Alexander Chee

I would look at him and wonder what it felt like, to have the print of your enemy all the way inside you, right into the way you shaped your thoughts.

There is light suddenly everywhere, the light of your life speaking to you. What it tells you is almost the same as what happened.

Never mind that almost isn’t good enough; it’s all you have.

We learn our first lessons about money as children, and these shape much of our ideas about it. We learn these lessons from our parents, but from others also. But I feel as if I have always been taught about money by everyone, every day of my life a lesson, whether I want it or not, in what money is and does.

There was a question I wanted answered more than I wanted anything else, and it could take my life to answer it. This question was What could I be? This was what I wanted to know.