“Why do you think you are missing something you never had?”

“Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess."- Ch. 5”

“Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again?”

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

“Don't think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then you mind becomes confused.”

“I think now that fate is half shaped by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. You have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation.”

“And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over.-Rose”