“We all long for what could have been.”

“If we could be satisfied with anything, we should have been satisfied long ago.”

“Because inside we still carry the dreams of what could have been, of what should have been, of what we wish could still be. This doesn't mean we aren't content. We are content, but the romantic longings of our girlhood have never entirely left us. It's like Yen-Yen said all those years ago: 'I look in the mirror and I'm surprised by what I see.' I look in the mirror and still expect to see my Shanghai-girl self- not the wife and mother I've become.”

“It could have been a month or, It could have been a year, But I, I gave up long before, Long before you cared.”

“[F]or grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed.”

“We're all clichés, all following scripts that have been written and played out long before we landed the role.”