I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?

Now they seemed to be in a contest over who could irritate her more, and she sometimes had to remind herself that teenagers had souls

The life we receive is not always what we choose.

Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.

I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things: that she didn't really mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more. But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once agian: My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more. No doubt she told Auntie Lin I was going back to school to get a doctorate.

I felt stuck in the bottom of a wishing well. I was desperate to shout what I wanted, but I didn’t know what that was. I knew only what it wasn’t. The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan