“I hand the cage to him and he takes it firmly in his arms.'Your hankie smells nice,' he says, almost in a whisper.”

“Inside its crumbling walls the house is riddled with bullet holes, and in its garden only the crimson dahlias still hold their heads high. Jing is lying on a chaise longue [sic] playing with his bird.'I thought you were in prison.'He looks up, his eyes filled with hate and desire.'You are my prison.”

“I am like them-I want life. I want to go back to Manchuria, to find my house and my go table. I will return to the Square of a Thousand Winds and wait for my Stranger. I know he will come ... one afternoon ... as he did that first time.”

“The strength of the snow and the fire has turned you into a traveling magician. You heal people by holding their hands between yours, you make them forget the cold, hunger, sickness, and war.”

“Love has been buried forever under the leaves at my feet. I lie down on the ground and rest my head on my bag. The grass tickles my arms where I bend the stalks under my neck.I want to sleep.”

“Endless moons, an opaque universe, thunder, tornadoes, the quaking earth. Rare moments of peace; forehead up against my knees, arms around my head, I thought, I listened, I longed not to exist. But life was there, a transparent pearl, a star revolving slowly on its own axis.”

“Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle like a game of go. I will take hold of all the pain and snuff it out.”