And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unbreakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?

Fate changes when you change your clothes.

Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.

I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born a girl. All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way.

I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than for success.

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying. -An-mei