Joy Luck Club Quotes

• I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?

  Amy Tan

  Children, Character, Chinese

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.254, Penguin

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• A girl is like a young tree, she said. You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away.

  Amy Tan

  Girl, Mother, Running

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.191, Penguin

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• Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

  Amy Tan

  Fate, Expectations, Half

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.131, Penguin

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• For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.

  Amy Tan

  Mother, Believe, Wanted

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.142, Penguin

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• I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.

  Amy Tan

  Fate, Illusion

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.121, Penguin

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• It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.

  Amy Tan

  Hate, Joy

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club: A Novel”, p.190, Penguin

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• Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess." - Ch. 5

  Amy Tan

  Play, Want, Chess

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• Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.

  Amy Tan

  Jesus, Thinking, Quality

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club: A Novel”, p.161, Penguin

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• Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.

  Amy Tan

  Pain, Flesh, Young

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.48, Penguin

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• Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.

  Amy Tan

  Daughter, Laughing, Forever

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.213, Penguin

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• I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child.

  Amy Tan

  Children, Fighting, Saws

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.183, Penguin

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• And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. -Rose

  Amy Tan

  Fate, Thinking, Expectations

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.131, Penguin

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• For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.

  Amy Tan

  Lying, Passion, Men

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.81, Penguin

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• I began to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.

  Amy Tan

  Opportunity, Events, Looks

  Amy Tan (1990). “The Joy Luck Club”

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• And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.

  Amy Tan

  Vomiting, Remember, Wonder

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.154, Penguin

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• My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.

  Amy Tan

  Mother, Fate, Thinking

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.130, Penguin

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• On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.

  Amy Tan

  Mother, New Year, Years

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.240, Penguin

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• But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei

  Amy Tan

  Regret, Get Better, Way

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club: A Novel”, p.102, Penguin

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• what you don't know, you don't miss

  Cecelia Ahern

  Missing, Twists, Drinking Tea

  Cecelia Ahern (2005). “Rosie Dunne”, Wheeler Pub Incorporated

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• And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.

  Amy Tan

  Blood, Chinese, My Family

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club: A Novel”, p.222, Penguin

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• I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind. -Lindo

  Amy Tan

  Beautiful, Strong, Wind

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.58, Penguin

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• In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.

  Amy Tan

  America, Giving, Circumstances

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.254, Penguin

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• I have always known a thing before it happens.

  Amy Tan

  Happens, Known

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.243, Penguin

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• We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.

  Amy Tan

  Unseen, Hearing, Lost

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.67, Penguin

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• We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. -Suyuan

  Amy Tan

  Wish, Despair, Unbearable

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.24, Penguin

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