“If I could have looked into the future to see what I would have become, I wouldn't have become the person I was always meant to be. ~ lw”

“And I could see his internal struggle become an all out war. "It wouldn't have made a difference. Not with Adrian involved," he said..... "I meant it. I won't be that guy Rose. I won't be that man that takes someone else's girlfriend.”

“I would not have put it this way in those days, but because I was born a woman, I could never become an adult. I would always be a minor, my decisions made for me. I would always be a unit in a vast beehive. I might have a decent life, but I would be dependent—always—on someone treating me well. I knew that another kind of life was possible. I had read about it, and now I could see it, smell it in the air around me: the kind of life I had always wanted, with a real education, a real job, a real marriage. I wanted to make my own decisions. I wanted to become a person, an individual, with a life of my own.”

“I am sick of speaking English like this... I am scared that I have become a person who is always very aware of talking, speaking, and I have become a person without confidence, because I can't be me. I have become so small, so tiny, while the English culture surrounding me becomes enormous. It swallows me... I am dominated by it... Why do we have to force ourselves to communicate with people? Why is the process of communication so troubled and so painful?”

“Yes," Shannon said calmly. "I could have died. But so what? The stars would have come out tonight and the sun would have risen tomorrow morning. The only difference would be that I wouldn't see it." Shannon to Whip.”

“I could become a businessman and run some big corporation, I'd scramble and maneuver until I was at the top of everything and what would I have? Nothing.”