"I haven’t always been a teacup. Once I was red earth. My master rolled me over and over and I shouted, but he only smiled."

    "Then I was placed on a rolling wheel and suddenly I went around and around. 'Stop!’I cried, but the master only nodded."

    "Then he put me in the oven*. I had never felt so hot. I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips, 'Not yet.’"

    "Finally the door opened, and he took me out and put on a shelf. Then he brushed me and put back into the oven. This time it was twice as hot. I begged. I cried. I could see him through the opening, nodding his head, saying, 'Not yet.’"

    "Then I knew there wasn’t any hope. I was ready to give up, but the door opened and I was taken out and placed on a shelf. Later he handed me a mirror and said, 'Look at yourself.’I said, 'That can’t be me. It’s beautiful!’"

    "'I want you to remember,’he said, 'if I had just left you without rolling, you’d have dried up. If I had stopped rolling you around on the wheel, you would have been crushed. If I hadn’t put you in the oven, you would have broken. If I hadn’t brushed you all over, you would not have any color in your life, and if I hadn’t put you back in that second oven, you wouldn’t survive for very long, because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first started with you.’"