Not many women got to live out the daydream of women—to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself.

You can't eat straight A's.

Hunger also changes the world - when eating can't be a habit, then neither can seeing.

My job is my own only land.

Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.

When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves. We could be heroines, swordswomen. Even if she had to rage across all China, a swordswoman got even with anybody who hurt her family. Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound.

Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?