"In dignity, Van was beyond compare – her face a moon, her eyebrows two full curves; her smile a flower, her voice the sound of jade; her hair the sheen of clouds, her skin like snow. Yet Kieu possessed a keener, deeper charm – she excelled Van in talent and in looks. Her eyes were autumn streams, her brow spring hills. The flowers and willows envied her fresh hue" (pg. 34).
"As he paced round the wall, his eyes caught sight of a golf hairpin stuck on a peach branch. He quickly reached for it and took it home. 'How did it leave her room to come this way?' he asked. 'For it is hers, and fate has wiled that it should thus have fallen in my hands!' Now sleepless, he admired and stroked the pin still faintly redolent of sandalwood" (pg. 42).
"Kieu had to save her kin, her flesh and blood. When evil strikes, one bows to circumstance. When one must weigh and choose between one's love and filial duty, which will turn the scale? Kieu brushed aside her solemn vows to Kim – she'd pay a daughter's debt before all else. Resolved on what to do, she spoke her mind: 'Hands off my father, please! I'll sell myself and ransom him'" (pg. 52-53).
"One's fortune, good or ill, is heaven-sent. In Kieu a perverse fate had found its butt. Alas, the maiden was so young and fair! A rose had dropped into a huckster's boat" (pg. 60).
"She grabbed a whip, about to pounce and lash. 'Heaven and earth bear witness!' Kieu cried out. 'My life's as good as lost since I left home! What now remains of it to save and hold?' At once she drew the weapon from her sleeve – O horror, she found heart to kill herself! The bawd looked on aghast as the girl stabbed. Ah me, were all her talents and her charms to leave this earth, dissevered by a knife?" (pg. 65).
"Kieu mourned all women in the League of Sorrow. Fate grants them beauty as a seeming gift and makes them pay for it in coin and grief. It dooms them to a life of wind and dust – the sneers it hurls at them will not soon cease" (pg. 75).
"Each action, good or ill, weighs in the scale. When judged for her past sins, Kieu must be charged with reckless love, but not with wanton lust. Requiting love for love, she sold herself and saved her father: Heaven did not take note. She caused one death, but many lives were spared. She knew right thoughts from wrong, fair deeds from foul. Whose merits equal her good works, in truth? Thus they have washed away her sins of yore. When Heaven bends an ear, man's voice is heard. She who has purged herself from her past faults sows future happiness" (pg. 123).
"All things are fixed by Heaven, first and last. Heaven appoints each creature to a place. If we are marked for grief, we'll come to grief. We'll sit on high when destined for high seats. And Heaven with an even hand will give talent to some, to others happiness. In talent take no overweening pride – great talent and misfortune make a pair. A Karma each of us has to live out: let's stop decrying Heaven's quirks and whims. Within us each there lies the root of good: the heart means more than all talents on earth" (pg. 142).
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