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

You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman.

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.

And one of the interesting things about bound feet is that they never age.

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

Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.

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