Daughter Of Moloka'i Quotes
"Thank you for the world so sweet, Thank you for the food we eat. Thank you for the birds that sing, Thank you, God, for everything. Amen."
"I do wish that Mr. Mendonca would keep his livestock away from our live girls."
"I’m so sorry, Ruth. They liked you fine, Ruth, it’s just—"
"And meanwhile you have a home here and someone who loves you very much."
"Let us become worthy individuals. Let us study together in a friendly atmosphere. Let us take care of our health by eating properly. Let us be good to our parents."
"I wish I could meet her, Ruth said wistfully."
"You wily Japs always have all the angles figured, don’t you?"
"Impermanent are all component things, They arise and cease, that is their nature: They come into being and pass away, Release from them is bliss supreme."
"You are who you are, Dai—a beautiful young girl who will grow up to be a beautiful woman."
"We bought low-quality land that white men did not want and with hard work turned it into productive farmland."
"It’s not for you, ma’am. It’s for the people outside. So they can’t see you."
"I keep up with local property values. And today I’d judge the value of your land as no more than—five thousand dollars. And I’m being generous."
"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."
"They hate us because we buy farms? And make a success of it?"
"I thought, hey, let ’em come after me, what can they do?"
"You put native-born Californians out of work, then set about breedin’ like rats till you outnumbered real Americans."
"Gaman was a word rooted in Buddhism that meant 'enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity.'"
"They are stables," Taizo said in astonishment and dismay.
"You and your family will be fine," Shizuko assured Etsuko.
"These were just the words to nudge Donnie out of his stupor: 'I wanna see the racetrack again!'"
"We have to show we’re loyal Americans. We have to be better than the way they’re treating us."
"The once-gray windows matted with grime and horsehair were spotless, admitting welcome shafts of afternoon sunlight into the front room."
"Taizo had never felt prouder, never loved him more, than at this moment."
"The walls and ceiling had been newly lined with plasterboard and buttressed with Sheetrock, and the linoleum floor was a cheerful red."
"Her heart skipped again, this time with relief."
"His name was James Ito: seventeen years old, from Pasadena, shot through the heart and abdomen and pronounced DOA at the Manzanar hospital."
"A man is nothing without honor. They have taken everything else from me, but they will not take away my honor."
"How had the ship of his life, which had found such welcome shores in Hawai'i, foundered and run aground on the rocky shoals of this damnable California?"
"The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East."
"One kind word can warm three winter months."
"They are the ones who are now occupying your homes, operating your farms and other types of business, and making plenty out of it."
"What kind of world has this become, where someone can press a button and an entire city vanishes in a single flash of light?"
"The war is over, and we can move on with our lives. We’re owed that much. To live a quiet, ordinary life again."
"I would give anything in the world to hear her voice or see her face, even once."
"I would give anything in the world to hear her voice."
"You owe your life with us to that sense of honor."
"I am secure in the knowledge that I am the mother of your heart."
"It is your decision, butterfly, but I have never known you to make a bad one."
"They call it Hansen’s disease now. And I’ve been paroled."
"You have a Japanese legacy, Dai, but our blood is not your blood."
"I’ll be in touch when I know my travel plans."
"I have savings. And Social Security—I worked at the Kalaupapa Store for almost twenty years."
"The land is the chief, man is its servant."
"I can’t believe I did," Ruth said, pleased and surprised by these fragments of her past that were surfacing from some deep fathom of memory.
"It was just a cutting, but look at it now!"
"We were both so young when we came here."
"The land, sea, air, living things, how it’s all interconnected."
"Try as she might, Ruth could not banish from her thoughts Jiro’s drunken, but accurate, words: They killed him. Bastards!"
"You and your brothers were seldom found in great abundance at home."
"I tell myself those years were a gift of fate."
"How the hell do I forgive the bastards who murdered my father?"
"I have come to enjoy Christmas. Mostly for the delight it brings the keiki."
"That’s how angry I was. But it felt like a weight had been lifted off me."
I’m so glad you could join us," she said. "Rachel wrapped her arms around Etsuko.
"What survives is not a soul or personality but karma."
"He might’ve been drunk, or it might’ve been a suicide. Maybe both."
"I remember you did about a million paintings of it, all beautiful."
"The last twenty-three years have been a miracle for me too."