Well I know I am ugly and cannot be loved — - Pearl S. Buck

Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.

All things are possible until they are proved impossible — and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.

Chinese were born, it seemed to me, with an accumulated wisdom, a natural sophistication, an intelligent naiveté, and unless they were transplanted too young, these qualities ripened in them. To talk even with a farmer and his family, none of whom could read or write, was often to hear a philosophy at once sane and humorous. If ever I am homesick for China, now that I am home in my own country, it is when I discover here no philosophy. Our people have opinions and creeds and prejudices and ideas but as yet no philosophy.