I stumbled out into the courtyard to try to flee my misery, but of course we can never flee the misery that is within us.

I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about - the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of a box. There's no doubt it's the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth; it can put out fire, it can wear a piece of metal down and sweep it away. Even wood, which is its natural complement, can't survive without being nurtured by water And yet, you haven't drawn on those strengths in living your life, have you?

For a flicker of a moment I imagined a world completely different from the one I'd always known, a world in which I was treated with fairness, even kindness-- a world in which fathers didn't sell their daughters.

The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world.

Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.

Even stone can be worn down with enough rain.

Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away.