“...maybe writing doesn't require sacrifice. Maybe it's a gift to experience emotions through our brushes, ink, and paper. I wrote out sorrow, fear, and hate. You wrote desire, joy, and love. We paid a heavy price for speaking our minds, for revealing our hearts, for trying to create, but it was worth it, wasn't it, daughter?”

“I've come to believe that part of lovesickness comes from this conflict between control and desire. In love we have no control. Our hearts and minds are tormented, teased, enticed and delighted by the overwhelming strength of emotions that make us try to forget the real world.”

“I don't want her to either, which is exactly what I've been saying. Still, there's a part of me that hates that our family businesses- the very things that have kept Joy fed, clothed, and housed- are so embarrassing to her...We raised our children to be Americans, but what we wanted were proper Chinese sons and daughters.”

“We hug, but there are no tears. For every awful thing that's been said and done, she is my sister. Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life. She is the only person left in the world who shares my memories of our childhood, our parents, our Shanghai, our struggles, our sorrows, and, yes, even our moments of happiness and triumph. My sister is the one person who truly knows me, as I know her. The last thing May says to me is 'When our hair is white, we'll still have our sister love.”

“How can we not create a fantasy in our minds when the reality is so hard?”

“Then it dawned on me that men throughout the country had to know about nu shu (women's written word). How could they not? They wore it on their embroidered shoes. They saw us weaving our messages into cloth. They heard us singing our songs and showing off our third-day wedding books. Men just considered our writing beneath them.It is said men have the hearts of iron, while women are made of water. This comes through men's writing and women's writing. Men's writing has more than 50,000 characters, each uniquely different, each with deep meanings and nuances. Our women's writing has 600 characters, which we use phonetically, like babies to create about 10,000 words. Men's writing takes a lifetime to learn and understand. Women's writing is something we pick up as girls, and we rely on the context to coax meaning. Men write about the outer realm of literature, accounts, and crop yields; women write about the inner realm of children, daily chores, and emotions. The men in the Lu household were proud of their wives' fluency in nu shu and dexterity in embroidery, though these things had as much importance to survival as a pig's fart.”

“As she spoke, I wanted to cry, because sometimes it's just so damn hard to be a mother. We have to wait and wait and wait for our children to open their hearts to us. And if that doesn't work, we have to bide our time and look for the moment of weakness when we can sneak back into their lives and they will see us and remember us for the people who love them unconditionally.”