“We are living in a world where everything is false. The society is like bright paint applied on top of rotten wood.”

“No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.”

“What use for? asks my mother, jiggling the table with her hand. You put something else on top, everything fall down.”

“But later that day, the streets of Kweilin were strewn with newspapers reporting great Kuomintang victories, and on top of these papers, like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people - men, women and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead.”

“I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.”

“...A painting was a translation of the language of my heart.”

“My sisters and I stand, arms around each other, laughind and wiping the tears from each others eyes. The flash of the Polaroid goes off and my family hands me the snapshot. My sisters and I watch quietly together, eager to see what develops. Ghe grey-greensurface changes to the bright colors of our three images, sharpening and deepening all at once. And although we don't speak, I know we all see it: Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in suprise to see, her long-cherished wish.”