Now I was a tiger that neither pounced nor lay waiting between the trees. I became an unseen spirit.

But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter. -Ying Ying

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.

How I saw in her my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones... Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain. This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bones. The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.

No one in my family was a reader of literary fiction. So, I didn't have encouragement, but I didn't have discouragement, because I don't think anybody knew what that meant.

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

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