Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet Quotes

He was a polished jazz player, whose poverty had less to do with his musical ability and more to do with his color. Henry had liked him immediately. Not because they were both outcasts, although if...

In the middle of the crowd stood Henry, shopping bags hanging at his side. He felt as if he were waking up from a long forgotten dream. A dream he'd once had as a little boy. (1.1)

They asked—no, told—him to stop speaking their native Chinese. It was 1942, and they were desperate for him to learn English. Which only made Henry more confused when his father pinned a button...

He and Marty hadn't talked much since the funeral. Marty stayed busy as a chemistry major at Seattle University, which was good, it seemed to keep him out of trouble. But college also seemed to kee...

He'd agreed to an early retirement deal at Boeing Field and now had all the time in the world, and no one to share the hours with. No one with whom to walk down to the Mon Hei bakery for yuet beng,...

The extra goodies had been at Henry's insistence. He knew his son did okay with the food on campus, but they didn't have anything that compared with a dozen fresh hum bau—and besides, steamed por...

The attack on Pearl Harbor had been terrible and unexpected, sure, but it paled when compared with the bombings of Shanghai or the sacking of Nanjing—according to his father anyway. Henry, on the...

He thought of Ethel too. What would she think? Would she approve of him snooping around down here, digging into the past? The more he thought about it, the more he realized what he'd known all alon...

But now, deep down, Henry wanted to tell his son everything. How seemingly unfair life was in retrospect, and how remarkable it was that they'd all just accepted what they had and made the best of...

He'd been raised to care for loved ones, personally, and to put someone in a home was unacceptable. What his son, Marty, never fully understood was that deep down there was an Ethel-shaped hole in...