“If you don't respect your ideas, make note of them, and keep your mind open to them, they'll float right past you, like fish in the ocean...If you don't respect your ideas, nobody else will.”

“But beauty holds only part of a man, and that for just so long. Keep some of yourself hidden. You can lavish love and praise on him and work hard by his side...But the secret is keeping your innermost beauty, the secrets of your soul, locked in your heart so that he must always reach out to you for it.”

“She tried to keep busy, but each afternoon she was drawn into the courtyard or up into the pavilion, where she sat as still as a pool of water. It was as if she feared she'd fly away into a million pieces if she moved.”

“She didn't look up until he was gone. She saw him pas the outside wall of the pavilion and heard his footsteps recede into the stairwell. When he was gone, she bowed her head and let the grief engulf her. Her heart crumpled and shrank, like a ball of paper set on fire.”

“I can say without absolute certainty that you are the only person in this world that deserves the moon, the ocean, and the stars. You are the only exception. You deserve them and if it takes me our entire lives to give them to you I won't settle until they are yours.”

“When you draw, you copy the world don't you? You remake it on paper, but it isn't the same. It's yours. No one else could have created it just like that. When I make poems, I use the words we all use, but the order and the sound create a new power. This wood is someone's creation. We stumble through it's tendrils, as if we're crawling through the synapses of his mind.”

“They don't respect you, they don't respect our flag, they don't respect our King and they don't respect your parents. If you allow this to happen, then you are cowards. You must teach them what being Malaysian is all about.”