“Isn’t there one thing I can ask of you that you won’t disregard?. . . . You could just reply, "Yes, Baron," and be done with it.' Yes, Baron.”

“Waiting patiently doesn't suit you. I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about.[Mameha]”

“I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about -- the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of the box. There's no doubt it's the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth; it can put out fire; it can wear a piece of metal down and sweep it away. Even wood, which is its natural complement, can't survive without being nurtured by water. And yet, you haven't drawn on those strengths in living your life, have you?”

“I could no more have stopped myself from feeling that sadness than you could stop yourself from smelling an apple that has been cut open on the table before you.”

“Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.”

“Oh I'm sure you're right," Auntie said. "Probably she's just as you say. But she looks to me like a very clever girl, and adaptable; you can see that from the shape of her ears.”

“It's your duty to use what influence you have, unless you want to drift through life like a fish belly-up on the stream""I wish I could believe that life really is something more than a stream that carries us along, belly-up""Alright, if it's a stream, you're still free to be in this part of it or that part, aren't you? The water will divide again and again. If you bump, and tussle, and fight, and make use of whatever advantages you might have-""Oh, that's fine, I'm sure, when you have advantages.""You'd find them everywhere, if you ever bothered to look!”