I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.

It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.

Over time, passion wanes, differences don't.

And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. -Rose

We all become different readers in how we respond to books, why we need them, what we take from them. We become different in the questions that arise as we read, in the answers that we find, in the degree of satisfaction or unease we feel with those answers...In the hands of a different reader, the same story can be a different story.

Each person is made of five different elements, she told me. Too much fire and you had a bad temper. That was like my father, whom my mother always critized for his cigarette habit and who always shouted back that she should feel guilty that he didn't let my mother speak her mind. Too little wood and you bent too quickly to listen to other people's ideas, unable to stand on your own. This was like my Auntie An-mei. Too much water and you flowed in too many different directions. like myself.

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength..."strongest wind cannot be seen."