Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.

Don't think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then you mind becomes confused.

Isn't that how it is when you must decide with your heart? You are not just choosing one thing over another. You are choosing what you want. And you are also choosing what somebody else does not want, and all the consequences that follow. You can tell yourself, That's not my problem, but those words do not wash the trouble away. Maybe it is no longer a problem in your life. But it is always a problem in your heart.

Clichés are static, the emotion behind them long spent. If you are tempted to use them, here is a saying of my mother’s: Fang pi bu-cho, cho pi bu-fang. Basically that translates to: "Loud farts don’t stink, and the really smelly ones don’t make a sound." In other words: When you’re full of beans, you just blow a lot of hot air. If you want to have a real impact, be deadly but silent. Oh, also recognize the difference between a bad cliché and a good quotation. My mother’s saying is a good quotation. You should use it often.

We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.

I have always known a thing before it happens.

For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.