“There's no hope. There's no reason to keep trying.Because you must. This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate. This is your life, what you must do.”

“Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that's like saying you can never change your fate. Isn't that true?”

“Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.”

“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.”

“Isn't that how it is when you must decide with your heart? You are not just choosing one thing over another. You are choosing what you want. And you are also choosing what somebody else does not want, and all the consequences that follow. You can tell yourself, That's not my problem, but those words do not wash the trouble away. Maybe it is no longer a problem in your life. But it is always a problem in your heart.”

“You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying.-An-mei”

“I still don't know which way I would teach you. I was once so free and innocent. I too laughed for no reason. But later I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then I taught my daughter, your mother, to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well. Hwai dungsyi, was this kind of thinking wrong? If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too? If I see someone has a suspicious nose, have I not smelled the same bad things?...Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.”