She [my mother] said that if I listened to her, later I would know what she knew: where true words came from, always from up high, above everything else. And if I didn't listen to her, she said my ear would bend too easily to other people, all saying words that had no lasting meaning, because they came from the bottom of their hearts, where their own desires lived, a place where I could not belong.

With hope, a mind is always free.

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.

To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing. -Jing-mei

With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.

When you lose your face..., it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it.

When I returned home that day, I saw my life as if I already knew the happy ending of a story. I looked around the house and thought, soon I will no longer have to see these walls and all the unhappiness they keep inside.