Lisa See Quotes

Lisa See

Lisa See is an American writer and novelist. Her books include On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family, a detailed account of See’s family history, and the novels. (Lisa See Quotes)

“A brave heart? It feels like a swollen and aching thing in my chest.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“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 orange glow.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“A monument will never change how she feels. It’s unfair that victims should have to forgive those who raped, tortured, and killed, or burned villages to the ground. On an Island of World Peace, shouldn’t those who inflicted terrible harm on others be forced to confess and atone, and not make widows and mothers pay for stone monuments?”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“A single spark is not enough to warm a room nor is a single seed enough to grow a fruitful crop. Deep love – true heart love – must grow”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“A weak man always seeks to hurt those lower than he is”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“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
China Dolls

“All girls have dreams, even if our destinies are set.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“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
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“All these types of love come out of duty, respect, and gratitude. Most of them, as the women in my county know, are sources of sadness, rupture, and brutality.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“All women on earth and men, too for that matter hope for the kind of love that transforms us, raises us up out of the everyday, & gives us the courage to survive our little deaths: the heartache of unfulfilled dreams, of career and personal disappointments, of broken love affairs.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“Always remember If you don’t love tea, you can’t make good tea.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Anyone who says that women do not have influence in men’s decisions makes a vast and stupid mistake.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Anyone who tells you that the Yao people never care for their daughters is lying. We may be worthless. We may be raised for another family. But often we are loved and cherished, despite our natal families’ best efforts not to have feelings for us.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“As she spoke, I wanted to cry, because sometimes it’s just so damn hard to be a mother. We have to wait and wait and wait for our children to open their hearts to us. And if that doesn’t work, we have to bide our time and look for the moment of weakness when we can sneak back into their lives and they will see us and remember us for the people who love them unconditionally.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“But teaching a lesson isn’t a part of friendship.”
Lisa See
China Dolls

“Confucius didn’t care much for women: When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“Dad was the biological vessel who helped put my soul into this body”
Lisa See
China Dolls

“Don’t ever feel that you have to hide who you are. Nothing good ever comes from keeping secrets like that.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“Dreamers are born to be disappointed.”
Lisa See
China Dolls

“Every mother must leave her children to work, and every mother suffers, but we do it.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“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.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“Fall down eight times, stand up nine. For me, this saying is less about the dead paving the way for future generations than it is for the women of Jeju. We suffer and suffer and suffer, but we also keep getting up. We keep living. You would not be here if you weren’t brave. Now you need to be braver still.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“For a tree that has many branches, even a small breeze will shake some loose.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“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.” (Lisa See Quotes)
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Having a baby is painful in order to show how serious a thing life is.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“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
Peony in Love

“Her house is the nest where she hides the joy, laughter, sorrows, and regrets of her life.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“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 than a cultivated woman.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“How can we not create a fantasy in our minds when the reality is so hard?”
Lisa See
Peony 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 moments.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“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.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one in the same.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I came here to be happy, and I’m going to be happy. If I smile, then maybe I can convince my body just how happy I am.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“I didn’t know you would be here last night, but you were. We can’t fight fate. Instead, we must accept that fate has given us a special opportunity.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“I grew up believing that rice was to nourish and that tea was to heal. Now I understand that tea is also to connect and to dream. That seduction is deeper and more profound than could happen with any man.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“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.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I have a whole life to tell; I have nothing left to lose and few to offend.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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
Peony in Love

“I know a lot about women and their suffering, but I still know almost nothing about men.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I now understand that we learned these songs and stories not just to teach us how to behave but because we would be living out variations of them over and over again throughout our lives.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

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

“I thought I could use idealism to solve my inner conflicts, but in healing my inner conflicts I destroyed my idealism.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“I wonder if there was anything I would have done differently. I hope I would have done everything differently, except I know everything would have turned out the same. That’s the meaning of fate.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“I’ve had to think about the dark shadow side of friendship. This is the person who knows and loves you best, which means she knows all the ways to hurt and betray you.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“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
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“If fire doesn’t raze the mountain, the land will not be fertile.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“If you work hard, you will eat easy. If you work easy, you will eat hard.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“In every message she spoke of birds, of flight, of the world away. Even back then, she flew against what was presented to her. I wanted to cling to her wings and soar, no matter how intimidated I was.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“It is our duty to be keepers and managers of the sea. If we protect our wet fields, they will continue to provide for us.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“It may be that the numinous spirit of the written word does not perish and so, too, bestows life after death.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“It was easier for me to begin picking at Snow Flower’s faults than to feel the emotions raging inside of me.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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
Dreams of Joy

“It’s just that all those who had real value and honor in our family were women. For too long our daughters have been pushed aside. I thought that might change with you.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“It’s said that great sorrow is no more than a reflection of one’s capacity for great joy.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“It’s hard for a snake to go back to Hell once its had a taste of Heaven.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“It’s said that great sorrow is no more than a reflection of one’s capacity for great joy. I see it from the opposite direction. I’m happy, but there’s an empty space inside me that will never stop suffering from the loss of Yan-yeh.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“I’ve come to believe that part of lovesickness comes from this conflict between control and desire. In love we have no control. Our hearts and minds are tormented, teased, enticed and delighted by the overwhelming strength of emotions that make us try to forget the real world.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“Man becomes wiser and more mature through life experience. The same can be said of tea.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“May and I are sisters. We’ll always fight, but we’ll always make up as well. That’s what sisters do: we argue, we point out each other’s frailties, mistakes, and bad judgment, we flash the insecurities we’ve had since childhood, and then we come back together. Until the next time. ”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“Maybe our lives are like gigantic jigsaw puzzles. You find the right piece and suddenly the whole picture has meaning.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Maybe that’s what we’re all like with our mothers. They seem ordinary until one day they’re extraordinary.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“Maybe we’re all like that with our mothers. They seem ordinary until one day they’re extraordinary.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“Miracles are everywhere, and as I watch my sister–forever, beautiful, forever my little sister staring into the eyes of the one man she ever loved, I know that indeed things do return to the beginning. The world opens again, and I see a life of happiness without fear. I gaze at my family complicated though it may be and know that fate smiles on us.” (Lisa See Quotes)
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“Model communes are the ones where the leaders lie the best and the biggest.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“My heart is empty & my life has no value anymore. Each moment a thousand tears.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“My home is here with this family I’ve built from scraps of tragedy.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“My love for him had never gone away but only changed, growing deeper like wine fermenting or pickles curing. It bore into me with the pervasiveness of water working its way to the center of a mountain.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“My mother used to tell me that Heaven never seals off all exits.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“My writing is soaked with the tears of my heart, an invisible rebellion that no man can see. Let our life stories become tragic art. Oh, Mama, oh, sisters, hear me, hear me.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“One mistake can change the course of your life. You can never return to your original path or go back to the person you were.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Opium and heroin had not caused our poverty and hopelessness. Rather, poverty and hopelessness had brought about an unquenchable desire to forget.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“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
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“Parents exist in children,” Grandmother said to bolster my confidence. “Your mother will always exist in you. She will give you strength wherever you go.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“People are shaped by the earth and water around them.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“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
Peony in Love

“Poetry is on earth to make you serene, not corrupt your mind, thoughts, or emotions”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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
Dreams of Joy

“She loves you. She’s just forgotten how to show it.”
Lisa See
Dragon Bones

“She should be good, not complain, learn through her eyes and ears, and make her mother proud.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“So many mistakes. So many errors. So much tragedy as a result. In that moment I understood that the cruelest words in the universe are if only.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“Sometimes you think you have all of tomorrow ahead of you,’ Mama often said. ‘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
Shanghai Girls

“Suffering has brought clarity into my life. Maybe the things that have happened to me are punishment for what I did in a previous life, maybe they were fate or destiny, and maybe they’re all just part of a natural cycle – like the short but spectacular lives of cherry blossoms in spring or leaves falling away in autumn.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Tea reminds us to slow down and escape the pressures of modern life,” he says”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“The fallen leaves return to the root.”
Lisa See
On Gold Mountain

“The fear of death was a powerful aphrodisiac.”
Lisa See
China Dolls

“The greatest calling of all is to have a literary life.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“The human body is a miniature version of the universe – the eyes and ears are the sun and moon, breath is air, blood is rain.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“The lotus symbolizes purity, because it rises out of the mud but looks pristine.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“The realization that truth, forgiveness, and goodness are more important than revenge, condemnation, and cruelty gives me courage and certainty.”
Lisa See
Dreams of Joy

“The sea is better than a mother. You can love your mother, and she still might leave you. You can love or hate the sea, but it will always be there. Forever. The sea has been the center of her life. It has nurtured her and stolen from her, but it has never left.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“The three most important powers are Heaven, Earth and Man. The three luminaries are the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. Opportunities given by Heaven are not equal to the advantages afforded by Earth, while the advantages of Earth do not match the blessings that come from harmony among men”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“There is no life without death. That is the true meaning of yin and yang”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“There is only one perfect child in the world and every mother has him.”
Lisa See
China Dolls

“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.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“To believe in dreams is to spend half your life asleep.”
Lisa See
China Dolls

“To learn a different language is to learn a different way of living.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“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
Dreams of Joy

“To understand everything is to forgive.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“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.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“We’re told that men are strong and brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat, and bear physical and mental agony much better than men.” (Lisa See Quotes)
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“What stays with me most is a general sense of loss, unease, and longing for the past that cannot be relieved.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“What the body knows and what the mind chooses to believe are two different things, after all.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“When fortune comes, do not enjoy all of it; when advantage comes, do not take all of it.”
Lisa See
China Dolls

“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
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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
Peony in Love

“When she reaches the ground, she looks from the old woman to me. A moment of confusion. Then recognition. I know her too, because I’ve seen traces of her in my face in the mirror. My mother. My a-ma.”
Lisa See
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“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
Shanghai Girls

“When they die, they keep loving. If love ends when a person dies, that is not real love.”
Lisa See
Peony in Love

“When you do things in a soft way, you make the other people believe they’ve thought up something to do for you, when actually you’re directing them.”
Lisa See
On Gold Mountain

“When you don’t have much, having less isn’t so bad.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“When you’re held underwater, you think only of air.”
Lisa See
Shanghai Girls

“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
Peony in Love

“With her bold act, I realized the true purpose of our secret writing. It was not to compose girlish notes to each other or even to introduce us to the women in our husbands’ families. It was to give us a voice.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“You are very smart. You must be very well educated. You are very pretty. You must be very rich because you’re a writer.”
Lisa See
On Gold Mountain

“You aren’t aware your clothes are getting wet in the rain.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“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
On Gold Mountain

“You cannot refuse to eat just because there’s a chance of being choked.”
Lisa See
China Dolls

“You have been a good mother to your children, but now you must be an even better and stronger mother. Children are hope and joy. On land, you will be a mother. In the sea, you can be a grieving widow. Your tears will be added to the oceans of salty tears that wash in great waves across our planet. This I know. If you try to live, you can live on well.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman.”
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“You may not know this, but the cold-water stress that the haenyeo endure is greater than for any other human group in the world.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“Your mother will always exist in you. She will give you strength wherever you go.”
Lisa See
The Island of Sea Women

“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
China Dolls