We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. -Suyuan

You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally--that's the worst, I think, deficient morals. (Saving Fish From Drowning)

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again?

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

They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along.

I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic.