“But two years into our parties, I surveyed the scene from the corner and wondered, Why are we having these parties? What were we making, coming together like that? We were trying to prove that we had everything because we had parties, but I began to feel like we had nothing but parties. If anyone from the future could look back on what we were building, I was sure they would say, That could only have been built by slaves.”

“I wonder that all things seem to be from hell these days: dates, jobs, parties, weather…Could the situation be that we no longer believe in that particular place? Or maybe we were all promised heaving in our lifetimes, and what we ended up with can’t help but suffer in comparison.”

“In 1959, Vice-President Nixon, speaking to members of California’s Commonwealth Club, was asked if he’d like to see the parties undergo an ideological realignment—the sort that has since taken place—and he replied, “I think it would be a great tragedy . . . if we had our two major political parties divide on what we would call a conservative-liberal line.” He continued, “I think one of the attributes of our political system has been that we have avoided generally violent swings in Administrations from one extreme to the other. And the reason we have avoided that is that in both parties there has been room for a broad spectrum of opinion.” Therefore, “when your Administrations come to power, they will represent the whole people rather than just one segment of the people.”

“It's not that we had no heart or eyes for pain. We were all afraid. We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable...What was worse, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness?"So we decided to hold parties and pretend each week had become the new year. Each week we could forget past wrongs done to us. We weren't allowed to think a bad thought. We feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories. And each week we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And that's how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck.”

“I'll never stop wondering, you know. What could have been. If we'd stayed together, all those years ago. We might have come here to this villa, as husband and wife. With Sam. I might have had Sam as my son.""You might.""We might have had six children together.""Six! I'm not sure about that.""The worst things is... The worst thing is, we probably would have become discontented. After a few years. We probably would have lain here in the sun, feeling a little bored, wondering if we did the right thing in marrying each other. Not realizing how bloody lucky we were...""It's late. We should get some rest.""We make so many decisions over a lifetime. Some turn out to be unimportant...and some turn out to be the key to everything. If only we knew their significance at the time. If only we knew what we were throwing away.”

“Some people say we need a third party. I wish we had a second one.”