“Every mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.”

“Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.”

“It is the highest reward when a writer hears when a book written in doubt and solitude, has reached a human heart with a deeper meaning than even the writer had been aware of, as she wrote. It is something extra, the unexpected return.”

“Had she not created even him? Perhaps for that he never forgave her, but hated her and fought her secretly, and dominated her and oppressed her and kept her locked in houses and her feet bound and her waist tied, and forbade her wages and skills and learning, and widowed her when she was dead, and burned her sometimes to ashes, pretending that it was her faithfulness that did it.”

“I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within reach of everybody.”

“I would ask my teacher a question," Yehonala said."Ask," Lady Miao replied. She was brushing fine quick strokes upon a large sheet of paper spread upon a square table which the eunuch had brought to her side."When may I paint a picture of my own?" Yehonala asked. Her teacher held her hand poised for an instant and cast a sidelong look from her narrowed eyes. "When I can no longer command you.”

“If there is no other life, then this one has been enough to make it worth being born myself...a human being.”