"You're too polite."
Mrs. Suen repeats this to both Su and Chow throughout the film. The first time she meets them—separately—she tells them both that they are "too polite," or overly considerate, because they reject her hospitality or, in Chow's case, thank her too profusely. The notion that Su and Chow are "too polite" is a prescient one and reflects the traditional values they both hold. Their values or "politeness" prevent them from confronting their spouses about their affairs. Su's politeness prevents her from leaving her husband and manifesting the independence and happiness that she talks about with Chow.
"If your wife wasn't so attractive, she'd be a worried woman."
Chow connects Ping to Su because Ping needs a ticket to Singapore. Over lunch, Ping tells Chow that he intentionally left his hat at Su's office so he would have an excuse to go back and talk to her again. Ping makes the above remark about Su, suggesting that Chow would be tempted to have an affair with her if his wife wasn't so attractive. Ping doesn't realize at the time that Chow's wife is having an affair with Su's husband.
"I couldn't get started, so I gave up. I wasn't born to write martial arts stories."
Chow explains to Su why he never pursued his dream of writing martial arts stories and publishing them in the newspaper. This leads to a deeper discussion of the ways in which getting married has prevented Su and Chow from doing some of the things that they love or wish to do.
"You can have it on credit?"
This is Chow's response to Ping describing his predicament. Ping bursts into the office and asks for some cash from Chow, because he owes a sex worker from a few nights ago and lost the rest of his cash gambling. Chow's dumbstruck response that Ping can "have it [i.e., sex] on credit" reflects the incongruity of the changing times and values with Chow's own more traditional values.
"You notice things if you pay attention."
In a scene with her boss, Mr. Ho, Su comments on his new tie. Mr. Ho says it was a gift from his mistress, but he is surprised that she noticed he changed his tie since it was so similar to the one he was wearing before. Su's response prompts Mr. Ho to change back to his former tie, because he is going out to dinner with his wife and presumably realizes that she may also notice the new tie and wonder where he got it and who bought it for him.
"She dresses like that to go out for noodles?"
One of Mrs. Suen's mahjong partners makes this remark as Su leaves the apartment, the suggestion being that Su is not simply going out for noodles. The remark is an example of the subtle power of rumors and gossip that so strongly influence how Su moves through her claustrophobic, surveilled world in Mrs. Suen's apartment.
"It's already happened. It doesn't matter who made the first move."
Chow says this to Su after they try roleplaying the beginning of their spouses' affair. When Chow, as her husband, makes an advance at her, as his wife, she breaks character and is clearly uncomfortable. Chow tries to diffuse the discomfort by offering this remark, but it only upsets Su more, and she questions whether he even knows his wife at all.
"Maybe we're being too cautious. I'm always around anyway. We shouldn't have panicked."
One night while Su and Chow are working on the martial arts serial in Chow's room, Mrs. Suen and the Koos unexpectedly return home early and play mahjong all night long. Su feels she can't be seen in the apartment, especially emerging from Chow's room, or else they would all assume there was something romantic going on between her and Chow. But after staying in Chow's room all night and into the next day, because Suen and her mahjong partners continued to play a marathon of rounds, she starts to think that she and Chow overreacted, and that her presence would have been easy enough to downplay, because there truly wasn't anything romantic going on between them. Chow, on the other hand, doesn't think they overreacted, and feels that they would have justifiably thought it was odd for her to have been in his room with no one else home.
"It's right to enjoy yourself while you're young. But don't overdo it. When will your husband be back? ... In the future, don't let him travel so much. A couple should spend time together. Don't you agree?"
Mrs. Suen confronts Su for being out late and not spending a lot of time at the apartment. By lecturing Su, Suen is suggesting that people might presume Su is having "too much fun" when she goes out, and that that would reflect poorly on her reputation. Of course, the irony is that Su's husband is the one with an extramarital relationship, not Su, but he is spared Mrs. Suen's scrutiny.
"In the old days, if someone had a secret they didn't want to share, you know what they did? ... They went up a mountain, found a tree, carved a hole in it, and whispered the secret into the hole. Then they covered it with mud and left the secret there forever."
At a bar in Singapore, Chow tells Ping about a traditional method of burying secrets and putting things behind you. Ping responds that he doesn't have secrets like Chow, he's a simple man. When Chow shares the whole process of burying the secret, Ping responds, "What a pain! I'd just go get laid."
