44 Quotes by Justina Chen

I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?

What would it be like to look in the mirror and actually accept what you see? Not loathe the reflection, or despise it, or be resigned to it? But to like it?

Like world describers before me, those mapmakers in the seventeenth centure, I had laid down my first faintly drawn border. With that one tentative mark, my world expanded by a few freeing degrees.

What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than on mutual self respect?

Flawed, we’re truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.

If Jacob was right and clothes were costumes and makeup a mask, then our attitudes and habits must be our shields.

If there was one thing I refused to be, it was an insignificant footnote in some boy’s history.

But even quashed rebellions leave us different. Because freedom may be a forbidden fruit in tyrannies, but once tasted, it is unforgettable.

Safe, I decided, didn’t leave much room for fun.