Lisa See

“If fire doesn't raze the mountain, the land will not be fertile.”

“...maybe writing doesn't require sacrifice. Maybe it's a gift to experience emotions through our brushes, ink, and paper. I wrote out sorrow, fear, and hate. You wrote desire, joy, and love. We paid a heavy price for speaking our minds, for revealing our hearts, for trying to create, but it was worth it, wasn't it, daughter?”

“While she is lovely, we need to remember that her face is not what distinguishes her. Her beauty is a reflection of the virtue and talent she keeps inside.”

“Anyone who tells you that the Yao people never care for their daughters is lying. We may be worthless. We may be raised for another family. But often we are loved and cherished, despite our natal families' best efforts not to have feelings for us.”

“In every message she spoke of birds, of flight, of the world away. Even back then, she flew against what was presented to her. I wanted to cling to her wings and soar, no matter how intimidated I was.”

“I am still learning about love. I thought I understood it--not just mother love, but the love for one's parents, for one's husband, and for one's laotong. I've experienced the other types of love--pity love, respectful love and gratitude love. But looking at our secret fan with its messages written between Snow Flower and me over many years, I see that I didn't value the most important love--deep-heart love.”

“There is no life without death. That is the true meaning of yin and yang”

“As I speak, I’m reminded of the old saying that diseases go in through the mouth, disasters come out of the mouth, meaning that words can be like bombs themselves.”

“That lazy servant next door was sloppy with the Tso family’s nightstool and stunk up the street with their nightsoil,” Mama says. “And Cook!” She allows herself a low hiss of disapproval. “Cook has served us shrimp so old that the smell has made me lose my appetite.”We don’t contradict her, but the odor suffocating us comes not from spilled nightsoil or day-old shrimp but from her. Since we don’t have our servants to keep the air moving in the room, the smell that rises from the blood and pus that seep through the bandages holding Mama’s feet in their tiny shape clings to the back of my throat.”

“But I’m not just shocked. I’m also disappointed in May for allowing Z.G. to talk her into this. I’m angry at him for preying on her vulnerability. And I’m heartsick that May and I have to take it. This is how women end up on the street selling their bodies. But then this is how it is for women everywhere. You experience one lapse in conscience, in how low you think you’ll go, in what you’ll accept, and pretty soon you’re at the bottom. You’ve become a girl with three holes, the lowest form of prostitute, living on one of the floating brothels in Soochow Creek, catering to Chinese so poor they don’t mind catching a loathsome disease in exchange for a few humping moments of the husband-wife thing.”

“Miracles are everywhere, and as I watch my sister--forever, beautiful, forever my little sister--staring into the eyes of the one man she ever loved, I know that indeed things do return to the beginning. The world opens again, and I see a life of happiness without fear. I gaze at my family--complicated though it may be--and know that fate smiles on us.”

“I came here to be happy, and I’m going to be happy. If I smile, then maybe I can convince my body just how happy I am.”

“I saw that deep-heart love meant loving someone in spite of and because of his limitations.”

“I didn't know you would be here last night, but you were. We can't fight fate. Instead, we must accept that fate has given us a special opportunity.”

“Only through pain will you have beauty. Only through suffering will you find peace. I wrap, I bind, but you will have the reward.”

“Snow Flower was my old same for life. I had a greater and deeper love for her than I could ever feel for a person who was my husband.”

“Don't ever feel that you have to hide who you are. Nothing good ever comes from keeping secrets like that.”

“Her heart was like a great road with room for everyone.”

“Seeing something once is better than hearing about it a hundred times. Doing something once is better than seeing it a hundred times.”

“I want a marriage of companions—one of shared lives and shared poems,' he murmured. 'If we were husband and wife, we would collect books, read, and drink tea together. As I told you before, I'd want you for what's in here.'Again he pointed to my heart, but I felt it in a place far lower in my body.”

“I imagined my first night alone in bed with my stranger. I conjured our future years together unhampered by worries about money or officialdom. We would enjoy the day, the night, a smile, a word, a kiss, a glance. All lovely thoughts. All pointless dreams.”

“I wonder if there was anything I could have done differently. I hope I would have done everything differently, except I know that everything would have turned out the same. That's the meaning of fate. But if some things are fated and some people are luckier than others, then I also have to believe that I still haven't found my destiny.”

“We may look and act modern in many ways, but we can’t escape what we are... obedient chinese daughters.”

“When you don’t have much, having less isn’t so bad.”

“As she spoke, I wanted to cry, because sometimes it's just so damn hard to be a mother. We have to wait and wait and wait for our children to open their hearts to us. And if that doesn't work, we have to bide our time and look for the moment of weakness when we can sneak back into their lives and they will see us and remember us for the people who love them unconditionally.”

“It may be that the numinous spirit of the written word does not perish and so, too, bestows life after death.”

“So many mistakes. So many errors. So much tragedy as a result. In that moment I understood that the cruelest words in the universe are if only.”

“When in the world did anyone die from a dream?”

“I have inherited fragrance of classic books. Drilling the wall for light, hair tied to a beam in fear of drowsing, I wrest from nature excellence in letters.”

“a laotong relationship is made by choice...when we first looked in each other's eyes in the palanquin I felt something special pass between us--like a spark to start a fire or a seed to grow rice. But a single spark is not enough to warm a room nor is a single seed enough to grow a fruitful crop. Deep love--true-heart love--must grow.”

“All these types of love come out of duty, respect, and gratitude. Most of them, as the women in my county know, are sources of sadness, rupture, and brutality.”

“She loves you. She's just forgotten how to show it.”

“When you’re held underwater, you think only of air. I remember how I felt about Shanghai in the days after our lives changed - how streets that had once seemed exciting suddenly stank of nightsoil, how beautiful women suddenly were nothing more than girls with three holes, how all the money and prosperity suddenly rendered everything forlon, dissolute and futile. The way I see Los Angeles and Chinatown during these difficult and frightening days couldn’t be more different.”

“I’m reminded of the old saying that diseases go in through the mouth, disasters come out of the mouth, meaning that words can be like bombs themselves.”

“As obident as dogs and as stupid as water buffalo.”

“You can always count on people to crowded your party when you’re in glory but you should never dream of people sending you charcoal in the cold.”

“Model communes are the ones where the leaders lie the best and the biggest.”

“Give a low man one ounce of power and he’ll throw ten thousand pounds of bricks on your head.”

“Blessings and worry, happiness and fear – this is a mother’s love.”

“You can't fight your fate...It is predestined.”

“My mother used to tell me that Heaven never seals off all exits.”

“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”

“I finally understand what the poets have written. In spring, moved to passion; in autumn only regret.”

“Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life.”

“You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you.”

“Our words had to be circumspect. We could not write anything too negative about our circumstances. This was tricky, since the very form of a married woman's letter needed to include the usual complaints -- that we were pathetic, powerless, worked to the bone, homesick, and sad. We were supposed to speak directly about our feelings without appearing ungrateful, no-account, or unfilial.”

“Stories tell us how we should live.”

“The three most important powers are Heaven, Earth and Man. The three luminaries are the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. Opportunities given by Heaven are not equal to the advantages afforded by Earth, while the advantages of Earth do not match the blessings that come from harmony among men”

“A dragon doesn't surrender. A dragon fights fate. This is not some loud, roaring feeling. It feels more like someone blew on an ember and found a slight orange glow.”

“You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman.”