Lisa See Quotes & Sayings

She brags that she once earned one — Lisa See

Gone were my girlish ideas about romantic love and my later ideas about sexual love. From Yi, I learned to appreciate deep-heart love. — Lisa See

Everything always returns to the beginning. — Lisa See

You can't learn about living unless you live. You can't live unless you take a chance; and your living is limited by the chances you take. — Lisa See

Dreamers are born to be disappointed. — Lisa See

It's hard for a snake to go back to Hell once its had a taste of Heaven. — Lisa See

The Four Virtues
virtue, demeanor, speech, and work. — Lisa See

I think to really be literate in nu shu you only need about 600 characters because it is phonetic. So you're able to then create many words out of one character. — Lisa See

One of the things that's pretty unique about nu shu, when you look especially at these old letters and stories that have been saved, is that there are certain lines that are very standard that are used again and again. It's almost like a formula in a sense, so that these certain lines come up again and again. — Lisa See

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. — Lisa See

We're told that men are strong & brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat & bear physical & mental agony much better than men. — Lisa See

You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman. — Lisa See

all mistakes are my own — Lisa See

Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life. — Lisa See

My hardcover sales are 17% down in books but up 400% in electronics. — Lisa See

You can't fight your fate ... It is predestined. — Lisa See

Maybe we're all like that with our mothers. They seem ordinary until one day they're extraordinary. — Lisa See

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. — Lisa See

Model communes are the ones where the leaders lie the best and the biggest. — Lisa See

You have special abilities," she goes on. "I don't mean you are a witch or a fox spirit. And you've never seemed drawn to the special gift of healing or magic. Rather, you are like A-ma Mata, who gave birth to the Akha people, who pushed against her restraints, who said, 'No, I will not accept my bad fate,' and who endured against all odds with her intelligence, compassion, and perseverance. All that comes from this grove. And the mother tree." A-ma — Lisa See

In our country we call this type of mother love teng ai. My son has told me that in men's writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love. That is a mother's love. — Lisa See

There is no life without death. That is the true meaning of yin and yang — Lisa See

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. — Lisa See

To make an ox or water buffalo work so hard, it needs to be blinded and uninformed. That's what the government is doing to the masses now. — Lisa See

How can we not create a fantasy in our minds when the reality is so hard? — Lisa See

We've tried to keep her connected to her Chinese background and we've always felt really good about that, but what if, instead of building her Chinese identity, it's only served to make her feel separate from us and not 100 percent our daughter? — Lisa See

I focus my eyes on my jade bracelet. All these years and for all the years after I die, it will remain unchanged. It will always be hard and cold- just a piece of stone. Yet for me it is an object that ties me to the past, to people and places that are gone forever. Its continued perfection serves as a physical reminder to keep living, to look to the future, to cherish what I have. It reminds me to endure. I'll live one morning after another. — Lisa See

What was the purpose of being wrapped like a present if you had no feelings for the person you were being given to? — Lisa See

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? — Lisa See

If fire doesn't raze the mountain, the land will not be fertile. — Lisa See

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. — Lisa See

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. — Lisa See

To see Sow Flower's mother eat that meat was something I'll never forget. She had been raised to be a fine lady and, as hungry as she was, she did not tear into the food as someone in my family might. She used her chopsticks to pull apart slivers of the pork and lift them delicately to her lips. Her restraint and control taught me a lesson I have not strayed from to this day. You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less that a cultivated woman. — Lisa See

winter gone, mountains clear, water sparkles. — Lisa See

What's the first impression you have of a new place? Is it the first meal you eat? The first time you have an ice cream cone? The first person you meet? The first night you spend in your new bed in your new home? The first broken promise? — Lisa See

The realization that truth, forgiveness, and goodness are more important than revenge, condemnation, and cruelty gives me courage and certainty. — Lisa See

My heart is empty & my life has no value anymore. Each moment a thousand tears. — Lisa See

It's funny how in that moment I see things clearly. Am I beaten down? Yes. Have I allowed myself to become a victim? Somewhat. Am I afraid? Always. Does some part of me still long to fly away from this place? Absolutely. But I can't leave. Sam and I have built a life for Joy. It isn't perfect, but it's a life. My family's happiness means more to me that starting over again. — Lisa See

When you lose your home country, what do you preserve and what do you abandon? — Lisa See

The fallen leaves return to the root. — Lisa See

To us, she was like a rare bird that had escaped its cage and was roaming through a courtyard of common chickens. — Lisa See

When the sun is shining, think of the time it won't be, because even when you're sitting in your house with the doors shut, misfortune can fall from above. — Lisa See

It was like watching a silk worm's death-tender and subtle. — Lisa See

Everyone knows that part of the spirit descends to the afterworld, while part of it remains with the family, but we have a special belief about the spirit of a young woman who has died before her marriage that goes contrary to this. She comes back to prey upon other unmarried girls
not to scare them but to take them to the afterworld with her so she might have company. — Lisa See

When people are alive they love, when they die, they keep loving. If love ends when person dies, that is not real love — Lisa See

Could love be strong enough to outlast death not once but three times? — Lisa See

You're leaving, "she said, rising to her feet. "I knew it was coming."
"How?"
"I'm your mother. You're the breath of my lungs and the beat of my heart. I know you very well. — Lisa See

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. — Lisa See

the birth of the twins and what happened to them, although traditional, has transformed me as irreversibly as soaking cloth in a vat of dye. — Lisa See

Opera tells stories through the pure emotion of music. An exhibition has to tell a story purely visually. I've tried to incorporate both of those things - pure emotion and being more visual - into my writing. — Lisa See

I saw that deep-heart love meant loving someone in spite of and because of his limitations. — Lisa See

Nothing in the world is permanent. The only permanent thing is impermanence. — Lisa See

Waves of heat shimmy off the tarmac, and the air is stiflingly hot, with humidity that's even worse — Lisa See

People say you need to be strong, smart, and lucky to survive hard times, war, a natural disaster, or physical torture. But I say emotional abuse - anxiety, fear, guilt, and degradation - is far worse and much harder to survive. — Lisa See

A brave heart? It feels like a swollen and aching thing in my chest. — Lisa See

Stories tell us how we should live. — Lisa See

And often it would be a woman who was in her 70s or 80s who would win the beauty contest, because bound feet never age. — Lisa See

There was a typhoon the day you were born ... It is said that a Dragon born in a storm will have a particularly tempestuous fate. You always believe you are right, and this makes you do things you shouldn't ... You're a Dragon, and of all the signs only a Dragon can tame the fates. Only a Dragon can wear all the horns of destiny, duty, and power. Your sister is merely a Sheep ... — Lisa See

Her heart was like a great road with room for everyone. — Lisa See

The fear of death was a powerful aphrodisiac. — Lisa See

Maybe stories and memories are destined to be incomplete... — Lisa See

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. — Lisa See

You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you. — Lisa See

It has been said that marriages are arranged by Heaven, that destiny will bring even the most distantly separated people together, that all is settled before birth, and no matter how much we wander from our paths, no matter how our fortunes change - for good or bad - all we can do is accomplish the decree of fate. This, in the end, is our blessing and our heartbreak. — Lisa See

We're told that men are strong & brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat & bear physical & mental agony much better than men. — Lisa See

When fortune comes, do not enjoy all of it; when advantage comes, do not take all of it. — Lisa See

A woman isn't just one thing. The past is in us, constantly changing us. Heartache and failure shift our perspectives as do joy and triumphs. At any moment, on any given day, we can be friends, competitors, or enemies. We can be generous or stingy, loving or petty, helpful or untrustworthy. — Lisa See

These are universals, as is the fear women feel during times of political upheaval that occur in what could still be called the outside world of men--whether during the Taiping Rebellion so many years ago or today for women in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, or even right here in this country in the post-9/11 era. On the surface, we as American women are independent, free, and mobile, but at our cores we still long for love, friendship, happiness, tranquility, and to be heard. — Lisa See

Tea reminds us to slow down and escape the pressures of modern life," he says — Lisa See

All the time, I looked out our lattice window. I watched the birds fly by. I followed the clouds on their travels. I studied the moon as it grew larger, then shrank. So much happened outside my window that I almost forgot what was happening inside that room. — Lisa See

It's fair to say I don't know what I'm doing. I like to plot my life and proceed carefully, but life doesn't always follow a plan. — Lisa See

She loves you. She's just forgotten how to show it. — Lisa See

I am an eighth Chinese, and I come from a large Chinese-American family in Los Angeles. — Lisa See

I remember a song we used to sing, "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean." But I thought it was, "Columbus, Jump in the Ocean. — Lisa See

When I knew I couldn't suffer another moment of pain, and tears fell on my bloody bindings, my mother spoke softly into my ear, encouraging me to go one more hour, one more day, one more week, reminding me of the rewards I would have if I carried on a little longer. In this way, she taught me how to endure - not just the physical trials of footbinding and childbearing but the more torturous pain of the heart, mind, and soul. — Lisa See

But, you know, I just did a big trip in the spring to Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand, and that's when I bought a Kindle. I have like 15 books on this one little gizmo. But when I came home, the first night I picked up the book that was on my nightstand and I went right back to that. — Lisa See

What the body knows and what the mind chooses to believe are two different things, after all. — Lisa See

Some of what I am doing when I am researching is looking for things people in my family have done and finding out what those things mean, why they did those things and seeing how I fit into them. — Lisa See

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

Sisters, as you know, also have a unique relationship. This is the person who has known you your entire life, who should love you and stand by you no matter what, and yet it's your sister who knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt you the most. — Lisa See

Having a baby is painful in order to show how serious a thing life is. — Lisa See

Wanting to give her the best fit I could, I sand the knowledge I had learned from Snow Flower. Everyone needs clothing-no matter how cool it is in summer or how warm it is in winter-so make clothes for others without being asked. Even if the table is plentiful, let your in-laws eat first. Work hard and remember three things: Be god to your in-laws and always show respect, be good to your husband and always weave for him, be good to your children and always be a model of decorum to them. If you do these things, your new family will treat you kindly. In that fine home, be calm of heart. — Lisa See

Seeing something once is better than hearing about it a hundred times. Doing something once is better than seeing it a hundred times. — Lisa See

Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want. — Lisa See

Perhaps he was afraid as I was that we'd be caught. Or perhaps he was breathing me in just as I was letting him come into my lungs, my eyes, my heart. — Lisa See

I think sometimes as an adult, you take people for what they do, and what they are now, instead of the whole picture of their lives. — Lisa See

Hyacinth bean and papayas, long vines, deep roots. Palm trees outside the garden walls, with deep roots, stand a thousand years. — Lisa See

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

There is only one perfect child in the world and every mother has him. — Lisa See

Deep love-true-heart love-must grow. Back then I didn't yet understand the burning kind of love, so instead I thought about the rice paddies I used to see on my daily walks down to the river with my brother when I still had all my milk teeth. Maybe I could make our love grow like a farmer made his crop to grow-through hard work, unwavering will, and the blessings of nature. How funny that I can remember that even now! Waaa! I knew so little about life, but I knew enough to think like a farmer. — Lisa See

When in the world did anyone die from a dream? — Lisa See

I love research. I'd go so far as to say I'm a research fanatic. — Lisa See

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming
weren't our dreams what gave us strength, hope, and desire? — Lisa See

We may look and act modern in many ways, but we can't escape what we are ... obedient chinese daughters. — Lisa See

That I had been shallow, stubborn, and selfish did not alter the gravity and stupidity of what I had done. I had made the greatest mistake for a woman literate in nu shu: I had not considered texture, context, and shades of meaning. — Lisa See

He was in my hair, my eyes, my fingers, my heart. I day-dreamed about what he was doing, thinking, seeing, smelling, feeling. I could not eat for thoughts of him. — Lisa See

Poetry is on earth to make you serene, not corrupt your mind, thoughts,or emotions — Lisa See

I've never thought much about whether I was happy or if I had fun as a child. I was a so-so girl who lived with a so-so family in a so-so village. I didn't know that there might be another way to live, and I didn't worry about it either. — Lisa See

All things not at peace will cry out. — Lisa See

People come in and out of our lives, and the true test of friendship is whether you can pick back up right where you left off the last time you saw each other. — Lisa See