“The world is changing. You must make your own life outside this home.”

Transcend your abuse and transform it into a source of courage, creativity and compassion.

Friendship develops even if a thousand miles apart. But should yuan fen be absent between two individuals

I am a child of destiny who will unite East and West and change the world.

Don’t trust anyone. Be a cold fish. I hurt no one. And no one can hurt me.

I’m afraid the chances of your getting a dowry are slim.

You’ll always be expected to know Chinese, and if you don’t, I’m afraid they will not respect you as much.

But you will still look Chinese, and when people meet you, they’ll see a Chinese girl no matter how well you speak English.

To my surprise I found her cheerful and free of pain, perhaps because of the small doses of morphine she was being given.

You must rely on yourself. No matter what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take away your knowledge.

She was surrounded by neighbours and friends who congregated at her bedside day and night.

People with yuan fen are destined to like one another

In this cosy, noisy, gregarious world of the “all-chinese” sickbed, so different from the stark, sterile solitude of the American hospital room, her life had assumed the astounding quality of a continuous farewell party.

Suen Le! (it means, “Let it be.

Revenge is not worthy of you. If you concentrate on revenge, you will keep those wounds fresh that would otherwise have healed.

The future belongs to you. Should anyone insult you, tell yourself this:

At the age of three my grand aunt proclaimed her independence by categorically refusing to have her feet bound, resolutely tearing off the bandages as fast as they were applied.

For after years of living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion, and a man no longer believes he is a man.

When the will is enslaved to a desire, it will in turn enslave the mind.

Yet, after millennia of slavery by selfish/callous humans they’re made to look dumb! The ‘superior species’ in their situations would, too, appear ‘dumb’.

A leader enables people to love and honor the role they play in the organization or group they are part of.

Sweet is war to those who know it not.

We are created for adventure, and if we cannot find one, we start blowing things out of proportion so it feels like we have one.

Here, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.

And how those stories relate to the larger picture of American history.