Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother Quotes
"I’m using the term 'Chinese mother' loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish, and Ghanaian parents who qualify too."
"Western parents come in all varieties. Some are strict; others are lax."
"For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three that get tough."
"Chinese parents believe their children can be 'the best' students, that 'academic achievement reflects successful parenting'."
"Some might think that the American sports parent is an analog to the Chinese mother. This is so wrong."
"From the moment Sophia was born, she displayed a rational temperament and exceptional powers of concentration."
"By the time Sophia was three, she was reading Sartre, doing simple set theory, and could write one hundred Chinese characters."
"Chinese parents have two things over their Western counterparts: (1) higher dreams for their children, and (2) higher regard for their children in the sense of knowing how much they can take."
"Classical music was the opposite of decline, the opposite of laziness, vulgarity, and spoiledness."
"Never complain or make excuses. If something seems unfair at school, just prove yourself by working twice as hard and being twice as good."
"Nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work."
"The truth is, it wasn't always enjoyable for Sophia to have me as a mother."
"What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it."
"I had to change tactics immediately; I couldn't win this one."
"I loved Duke. My colleagues were generous, kind, and smart, and we made many close friends."
"Everything valuable and worthwhile is difficult!"
"I believe that she can do anything Sophia can do and that she’s strong enough to handle the truth."
"All decent parents want to do what’s best for their children."
"By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away."
"The cadenza is kind of a chance to show off."
"You can’t produce a mellifluous tone on the violin if you squeeze the bow too tightly or mash down on the strings."
"In America, everyone was always going to take her side."
"Extra credit is not extra. It’s just credit."
"One of the worst things you can do for your child’s self-esteem is to let them give up."
"I wasn’t going to let platitudes like 'Children need to explore' or 'They need to make their own mistakes' lead me astray."
"I wanted the cadenza to be good. It became a kind of obsession for me."
"If you play the cadenza really well next Saturday—better than you’ve ever played it—I’ll give you something you won’t believe, something that I know you will love."
"Coco is a Samoyed, a white, fluffy dog about the size of a Siberian husky, with dark almond eyes."
"The trick is teaching the dog to behave reliably without hitting his boredom threshold."
"Every day that you don’t practice is a day that you’re getting worse."
"My dad likes to try everything; at Western restaurants he often orders two main meals."
"My mother was a controlling fanatic who even in India made us practice before we could see Bombay and New Delhi."
"Childhood should be full of spontaneity, freedom, discovery, and experience."
"Western children are definitely no happier than Chinese ones."
"The kids were definitely mad at me. But as a Chinese mother, I put that out of my head."
"I just wanted her to be happy. I had finally come to see that Coco was an animal, with intrinsically far less potential than Sophia and Lulu."
"There is nothing better to spend our money on than our children."
"Everything I’ve ever done that’s valuable is something I was terrified to try."
"Performing isn’t easy—in fact, it’s heartbreaking."
"When you’ve worked as hard as you have, you know you’ve done everything you can, and it doesn’t matter now what happens."
"The Chinese parenting approach is weakest when it comes to failure; it just doesn’t tolerate that possibility."
"I told my mother to feel out the possibility of having Lulu perform with Sophia as a duo in Budapest, even if only for one piece."
"Everything I do is unequivocally 100% for my daughters."
"It's not easy to make your kids work when they don't want to, to put in grueling hours when your own youth is slipping away."
"Unlike my Western friends, I can never say, 'As much as it kills me, I just have to let my kids make their choices and follow their hearts.'"
"Mrs. Kazinczy looked like her husband had just left her for a younger woman."
"No Chinese daughter would ever act the way Lulu did."
"Dog raising is easy. It requires patience, love, and possibly an initial investment of training time."
"Chinese parenting is one of the most difficult things I can think of."
"I treated my law students (especially the ones with strict Asian parents) the exact opposite of the way I treat my kids."
"Lulu started rebelling: not just against practicing, but against everything I’d ever stood for."
"In fact it’s kind of the opposite. For one thing, dog raising is social."
"I felt they wasted a lot of time at Lulu’s school."
"The odd thing was that Lulu actually loved orchestra."
"Lulu wore a constant apathetic look on her face."
"I built a treehouse for my sisters because my father asked me to."
"I obeyed everything he said, and that's why I know how to use a chainsaw."
"With her shiny black eyes, her shiny bowl haircut, and her rosebud lips, she was constantly attracting the attention of strangers."
"When I play Bach, I feel like I’m time traveling; I could be in the eighteenth century."
"You’re always talking about gratitude, but you should be grateful to me."
"Winning prizes gives you opportunities, and that’s freedom—not running into the ocean."
"It’s no use, Amy. I’m not going to make it. There’s no hope. . . . There’s just no hope."
"You’re like a barbarian. And in case you think you’re a big rebel, you are completely ordinary."
"Everyone had always said she looked just like me, something that I loved to hear but that she vehemently denied."
"To succeed in this world, you always have to be willing to adapt. That’s something I’m especially good at that you should learn from me."