I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.

If she doesn't speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn't try, she can lose her chance forever. -An-mei

I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child.

I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.

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.

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

Hardships can harden even the best person.