If someone offers to take your burden, you need to know he is serious, not just being polite and kind. Polite and kind do not last. - Amy Tan

The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look! — it is too beautiful to eat.

I let one thing result from another. Of course, all of it could have been just loosely connected coincidences. And whether that's true or not, I know the intention was there. Becasue when I want something to happen-or not happen- I begin to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.

To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing.
-Jing-mei