Best 90 quotes of Lisa See on MyQuotes

The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.

We hug, but there are no tears. For every awful thing that's been said and done, she is my sister. Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life. She is the only person left in the world who shares my memories of our childhood, our parents, our Shanghai, our struggles, our sorrows, and, yes, even our moments of happiness and triumph. My sister is the one person who truly knows me, as I know her. The last thing May says to me is 'When our hair is white, we'll still have our sister love.

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.

What stays with me most is a general sense of loss, unease, and longing for the past that cannot be relieved.

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.

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

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. Page 279

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.

You can't fight your fate...It is predestined.

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

...comprendo que no valoraba el amor más importante: el que surge de lo más profundo del corazón.

Every day since waking up in the hospital I've wanted to die, but watching that man sink below the waves, I feel something inside me rise up. A Dragon doesn't surrender. A Dragon fights fate. This is not some loud, roaring feeling. It feels more like someone blew on an ember and found a slight orang glow. I have to hang on to my life—however ruined and useless. Mama's voice comes floating to me, reciting one of her favorite sayings, "There is no catastrophe except death; one cannot be poorer than a beggar." I want—need—to do something braver and finer than dying.

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.

Every woman who enters the sea carries a coffin on her back,” she warned the gathering. “In this world, in the undersea world, we tow the burdens of a hard life. We are crossing between life and death every day.” These traditional words were often repeated on Jeju, but we all nodded somberly as though hearing them for the first time. “When we go to the sea, we share the work and the danger,” Mother added. “We harvest together, sort together, and sell together, because the sea itself is communal.

Finally, the nima returns to our plane. "Wrong cannot be hidden. An outside spirit is insulted because Deh-ja made a mistake in one of her ancestor offerings.

From the second I woke up, I had seen my family in new ways and they had me filled with strange emotions --melancholy, sadness, jealousy, and a sense of injustice about many things that suddenly seemed unfair.

How can the moon be scooped from the water's surface, or flowers be plucked from the void?

How do we fall in love? ... How different it is with friendship. No one picks a friend for us. We come together by choice. We are not tied together through ceremony or the responsibility to create a son. We tie ourselves together through moment. The spark when we first meet. Laughter and tears shared. Secrets packed away to be treasured, hoarded, and protected. The wonder that someone can be so different from you and yet still understand your heart in a way no one else ever will.

I accepted these limitations, knowing that my worth was based entirely on the child growing inside me.

I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one and the same. For my entire life I longed for love. I knew it was not right for me - as a girl and later as a woman - to want or expect it, but I did, and this unjustified desire has been at the root of every problem I have experienced in my life.

I had always thought it was her way of blinding herself to the messiness of the way we lived. Now I realised it was easier for her mind to go out through the air far above the clouds then to acknowledge the ugliness right before her eyes.

I had always thought it was her way of blinding herself to the messiness of the way we lived. Now I realised it was easier for her mind to go out through the air far above the clouds than to acknowledge the ugliness right before her eyes.

I have heard that you should not do bed business after too much hard work, " Snow Flower told me, "but I don't believe that my mother-in-law has heard that." She looked exhausted. I felt the same way after visiting my husband's home-from the nonstop labor, from being polite, and from always being watched. "This is the one rule my mother-in-law doesn't respect either," I commiserated. "Haven't they heard an exhausted well yields no water?

I imagined my first night alone in bed with my stranger. I conjured our future years together unhampered by worries about money or officialdom. We would enjoy the day, the night, a smile, a word, a kiss, a glance. All lovely thoughts. All pointless dreams.

In my life, no three miles have been flat and no three days have had sun. I've been brave in the past, but now I'm beyond devastated. My grief is like dense clouds that cannot be dispersed. I can't think beyond the blackness of my clothes and heart.

It was easier for me to begin picking at Snow Flower's faults than to feel the emotions raging inside of me.

I used to think mothers-in-law are difficult the world over, but on that day I came to understand that they're simply unknowable.

I want a marriage of companions—one of shared lives and shared poems,' he murmured. 'If we were husband and wife, we would collect books, read, and drink tea together. As I told you before, I'd want you for what's in here.' Again he pointed to my heart, but I felt it in a place far lower in my body.

No coincidence, no story.

No one picks a friend for us; we come together by choice. We are not tied together through ceremony or the responsibility to create a son; we tie ourselves together through moments. The spark when we first meet. Laughter and tears shared. Secrets packed away to be treasured, hoarded, and protected. The wonder that someone can be so different from you and yet still understand your heart in a way no one else will.

Other kids get white rice, but the food you give us makes it look like we're living a subsistence life.” “I buy white rice for the New Year's Festival,” I said, stung. Then, defensively, “I often put barley in your lunch –” “Which is even more embarrassing, because that means we're really poor.” “What a lucky child you are to say that. You don't know what poor means –

Sometimes you think you have all of tomorrow ahead of you,’ Mama often said. ‘When the sun is shinning, 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.

The fear of death was a powerful aphrodisiac.

The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you.

They did this to me. They did that to me. A woman who thinks that way will never overcome her anger. You are not being punished for your anger. You're being punished by your anger.

To protect my heart, this is what I would have to do with Snow Flower. I couldn't let anyone know I was dying from anguish that she no longer loved me.

Who can name a death that was not tragic?” the speaker asks. “Is there a way for us to find meaning in the losses we've suffered? Who can say that one soul has a heavier grievance than another? We were all victims. We need to forgive each other.” Remember? Yes. Forgive? No.

Women live quietly," I said. "However angry or broken a woman might get, she does not think about beating someone, does she?

You aren't aware your clothes are getting wet in the rain.

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