The work of preservation demands that the feelings playing about in one's guts not be turned into action. Just watch their passing like cherry blossoms.

Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound

To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world--that I am able to change it in positive ways.

You can't eat straight A's.

To shut the door at the end of the workday, which does not spill over into evening. To throw away books after reading them so theydon't have to be dusted. To go through boxes on New Year's Eve and throw out half of what is inside. Sometimes for extravagance to pick a bunch of flowers for the one table. Other women besides me must have this daydream about a carefree life.

The swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar. May my people understand the resemblance soon so that I can return to them. What we have in common are the words at our backs. The idioms for revenge are 'report a crime' and 'report to five families.' The reporting is the vengeance-not the beheading, not the gutting, but the words.

I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I'm not, I'm not retarded.