“I have been brought up in a world dominated by honor. I have known neither crime, poverty, nor betrayal, and here I taste hatred for the first time: it is sublime, like a thirst for justice and revenge."-the girl who played go”

“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.”

“. . . I have witnessed the strength of our people driven from their own land. The tenacious march south is like a silent protest against death. In this tidal wave of men and woman a hatred mingles with hope. And this furious force of will that has infected me too will carry me to the very end of my own lonely progress.”

“I succeeded in using my charms like a weapon; I learned to play with other's hearts and to master my own desires.”

“I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.”

“The winter light, tinted by the bright colors in the street, plays on the go-board. All these festivities cut me off from the rest of the world. My loneliness is like a bolt of crimson silk stowed in the bottom of a wooden chest.”

“I must go live at the ends of the earth and have my child there while I wait for Min and Jing to be freed.That happy day will come: two men making their way towards a little cottage lost in the open countryside.The door opens . . .”