The Joy Luck Club Quotes
"I am a realist, not prone to outlandish dreams, and thus, rarely disappointed."
"A mother’s hopes and expectations become a daughter’s sense of failure."
"The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget."
"I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me."
"I would always remember my parents’ wishes, but I would never forget myself."
"It’s like those ladies you see on American TV these days, the ones who are so happy they have washed out a stain so the clothes look better than new."
"I made a promise to myself: I would always remember my parents’ wishes, but I would never forget myself."
"You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh."
"What was happier than seeing everybody gobble down the shiny mushrooms and bamboo shoots I had helped to prepare that day?"
"When something goes against your nature, you are not in balance."
"A man can grab you off the streets, sell you to someone else, make you have a baby."
"When the baby was ready to be born, I could already hear him screaming inside my womb."
"You can never get ahead. You are always rolling backward."
"The terror of not knowing when it would ever stop."
"She was clutching a large clam-shaped bag, as though someone might steal this from her as well if she is less watchful."
"My mother saw danger in everything, even in other Chinese people."
"We had this fight and she pushed me out the door and locked it."
"I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won'ts. I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not."
"I saw a girl complaining that the pain of not being seen was unbearable."
"After the show, the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs from the Joy Luck Club came up to my mother and father."
"You have natural talent. You could been genius if you want to."
"I looked at my reflection, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful."
"But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. 'If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good,' it warned."
"I remember thinking to myself, This is it! This is it! I looked out over the audience, at my mother's blank face, my father's yawn."
"I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different, that I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes."
"She looked around the room, toward the hall, and finally she said, 'You have career. You are busy. You want to live like mess what I can say?'"
"She wore her tight-lipped, pinched-nose look as she scanned the menu, muttering, 'Not too many good things, this menu.'"
"I remember the first time I felt it. I was ten years old. Even though I was young, I knew my ability to play chess was a gift."
"I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, to eat my own bitterness."
"Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else’s joy."
"You will live in a new house. You will have a new father. Many sisters. Another little brother."
"An-mei, now you are ready to start your new life."
"If she doesn’t speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn’t try, she can lose her chance forever."
"Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese."
"All these years, they have been dreaming of her."
"How can I say she is dead? I cannot write this."
"You are their own sister, their only family."
"How can you say she is not coming in a letter?"
"You are their mother. She is your mother. You must be the one to tell them."
"All these years, I tried to teach her! She followed my Chinese ways only until she learned how to walk out the door by herself and go to school."
"I am thirty-six years old. My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of coming home. I am going to China."
"I too have never forgotten you in my memory or in my heart. I never gave up hope that we would see each other again in a joyous reunion."
"I see her again, two of her, waving, and in one hand there is a photo, the Polaroid I sent them."
"Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish."