Joy Luck Club Quotes

We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.

I have always known a thing before it happens.

And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.

I began to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.

I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child.

Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.

Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess." - Ch. 5

It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.

I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.

For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.

Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.

And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei

I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind. -Lindo

My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. -Rose

And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every direction.

what you don't know, you don't miss

On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.

We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. -Suyuan

For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.

A girl is like a young tree, she said. You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away.

Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.

In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.

I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?

And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.