We are the kind of people who obsess over one word... but we have only one shot to get it right in concert. It was hard the first time I practiced with them. I was so nervous that my vocal chords were paralyzed for about a half-hour.

She would be quiet at first. Then she would say a word about something small, something she had noticed, and then another word, and another, each one flung out like a little piece of sand, one from this direction, another form behind, more and more, until his looks, his character, his soul would have eroded away . . . I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eye, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfections.

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

All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. -Ying Ying

I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?

Only two kinds of daughters, she shouted in Chinese. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!

Those who don't heed the warnings don't live to admit they were stupid not to do so.