5 Quotes by Ovidia Yu

Mrs MacPherson looked very proud of her son. It made me think about the different lessons people try to pass on to children about money. And about who controls that money.

I had seen enough of Western courtship rituals to know European families did little to identify, research and arrange suitable marriages. Instead, to catch the attention of potential partners, Western males had to resort to shows of strength, aggression and virility, rather like wild boars in the mating season, and Western females had to decorate themselves and their homes, like bower birds.

Miss Moorthy was aware that her interested concern in everybody’s well-being might be seen by the uncharitable as busybodyness. To Miss Moorthy it was simply a matter of setting things right starting from where she was. She could not single-handedly save the Amazonian rainforests but she could, and did, stop students from carving their names on trees or trampling on plants. It was all the same thing on a different scale, wasn’t it?

Years of balancing home and Mission School life had taught me to seize all opportunities as soon as they arose, before they could be snatched away.

It felt good to be alive. Better to be living with fools than dead in the company of sages, as my grandmother always said.