Stay True: A Memoir (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

by Hua Hsu

We would have driven anywhere so long as we were together.

I couldn’t understand why my parents wanted to go back to a place they had chosen to leave.

Immigrants are often discussed in terms of a push-and-pull dynamic: something pushes you from home; something else pulls you far away.

You were free to name your children after U.S. presidents. Or you might name them something unpronounceable, since they would never be president anyway.

Californians often grow up with a sense of entitlement simply because they get to live in California. It’s where people dream of ending up.

The intimacy of friendship, he wrote, lies in the sensation of recognizing oneself in the eyes of another.

You look forward to the future, even if you can no longer imagine life beyond that morning.

History is a tale we tell, not a perfect account of reality, I continued. You just have to figure out whether you trust the storyteller.

This is a book about being a good friend, a term that only occasionally applies to me.