Thus they communicated, the old speaking Japanese with an occasional badly mispronounced word or two of English; and the young, with the exception of a simple word or phrase of Japanese which came fairly effortlessly to the lips, resorting almost constantly to the tongue the parents avoided. (Chapter 1)

He looked at his mother and swallowed with difficulty the bitterness that threatened to destroy the last fragment of understanding for the woman who was his mother and still a stranger because, in truth, he could not know what it was to be a Japanese who breathed the air of America and yet had never lifted a foot from the land that was Japan. (Chapter 1)

I am not your son and I am not Japanese and I am not American. (Chapter 1)

The prison which he had carved out of his own stupidity granted no paroles or pardons. It was a prison of forever. (Chapter 2)

And, as... (Chapter 3)