When I knew I couldn't suffer another moment of pain, and tears fell on my bloody bindings, my mother spoke softly into my ear, encouraging me to go one more hour, one more day, one more week, reminding me of the rewards I would have if I carried on a little longer. In this way, she taught me how to endure — not just the physical trials of footbinding and childbearing but the more torturous pain of the heart, mind, and soul.

The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.

You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you.

Perhaps he was afraid as I was that we'd be caught. Or perhaps he was breathing me in just as I was letting him come into my lungs, my eyes, my heart.

And often it would be a woman who was in her 70s or 80s who would win the beauty contest, because bound feet never age.

I’ve never thought much about whether I was happy or if I had fun as a child. I was a so-so girl who lived with a so-so family in a so-so village. I didn’t know that there might be another way to live, and I didn’t worry about it either.

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