When she can't bring me to heal with scolding, she bends me to shape with guilt.

What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?

I wish to live for myself. I should never want to be trapped.

She knew what it was to wait for someone who would never come home. She knew that grief, like a scar, faded but never really went away.

We don't look at each other anymore. Not really. Not since I pulled him from that opium den. Now when I look at him, I see the addict. And when he looks at me, he sees what he would rather not remember. I wish I could be his adored little girl again, sitting at his side.

I change the world, the world changes me.

What did I do to make Mommy leave?” “You didn’t do anything. This isn’t your fault.” “Then why?” she’d wailed. “I don’t know,” her daddy had said, and he looked so sad. “It isn’t fair!” “No, it isn’t, baby. Not by a mile. The world’s only as fair as you can make it. Takes a lot of fight. A lot of fight. But if you stay in here, in your own little cave, that’s one less fighter on the side of fair.