Tan 215
“All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way"
Tan 217
"Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else’s joy."
Tan 217
"This was your fate, to live like two turtles seeing the watery world together from the bottom of the little pond."
Tan 219
"What my uncle had said was true. After I saw my brother this way, I could not keep my head lifted"
Tan 224
"That one, she is nobody, just the daughter of cook’s helper."
Tan 226
"who were called Second Wife and Third Wife."
Tan 228
"Fifth Wife is so young she did not bring any of her own servants, only a wet nurse."
Tan 228
"A girl in China did not marry for love. She married for position, and my mother’s position, I later learned, was the worst."
Tan 229
"You can see now, a fourth wife is less than a fifth wife."
Tan 232
"First Wife chose to be blind to the unhappiness of her marriage."
Tan 233
"Man or woman, you couldn’t tell, they were so dusty with a thick cover of snow."
Tan 234
"Wu Tsing had asked her to be his concubine, not for love, but because of the prestige of owning what so many other men wanted.”
Tan