One mistake can change the course of your life. You can never return to your original path or go back to the person you were.

We're told that men are strong and brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat, and bear physical and mental agony much better than men.

—Lisa See in Shanghai Girls

When the sun is shining, think of the time it won't be, because even when you're sitting in your house with the doors shut, misfortune can fall from above.

—Lisa See in Shanghai Girls

What stays with me most is a general sense of loss, unease, and longing for the past that cannot be relieved.

—Lisa See in Shanghai Girls

I wonder if there was anything I would have done differently. I hope I would have done everything differently, except I know everything would have turned out the same. That's the meaning of fate.

—Lisa See in Shanghai Girls

I didn't know you would be here last night, but you were. We can't fight fate. Instead, we must accept that fate has given us a special opportunity.

—Lisa See in Peony in Love

I let it go. It's like swimming against the current. It exhausts you. After a while, whoever you are, you just have to let go, and the river brings you home.

—Joanne Harris in Five Quarters of the Orange

If you set the person free, but they come back to you, well, that's love.

—Avery Williams in The Impossibility of Tomorrow

Life comes from the earth and life returns to the earth.

—Zhuangzi

We must return to nature and nature's god.

—Luther Burbank