For my entire life I longed for love. I knew it was not right for me — as a girl and later as a woman — to want or expect it, but I did, and this unjustified desire has been at the root of every problem I have experienced in my life.

When people are alive they love, when they die, they keep loving. If love ends when person dies, that is not real love

i would rather be married to broken jade than flawless clay

When the sun is shining, think of the time it won't be, because even when you're sitting in your house with the doors shut, misfortune can fall from above. Page 279

A brave heart? It feels like a swollen and aching thing in my chest.

Our words had to be circumspect. We could not write anything too negative about our circumstances. This was tricky, since the very form of a married woman's letter needed to include the usual complaints -- that we were pathetic, powerless, worked to the bone, homesick, and sad. We were supposed to speak directly about our feelings without appearing ungrateful, no-account, or unfilial.

There is no life without death. That is the true meaning of yin and yang