Her education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.

...we were like two people standing apart on separate mountain peaks, recklessly leaning forward to throw stones at one another, unaware of the dangerous chasm that separated us.

My mother didn't teach me lessons about being Chinese as strongly as she did the notion of who I was as a female.

Now you see,' said the turtle, drifting back into the pond, 'why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else's joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.

Fate changes when you change your clothes.

You see what power is holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them.