Lisa See > Quotes

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

“Sisters, as you know, also have a unique relationship. This is the person who has known you your entire life, who should love you and stand by you no matter what, and yet it's your sister who knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt you the most.”
― Lisa See

“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

“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

“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, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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

“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

“In that moment I understood that the cruelest words in the universe are if only.”
― Lisa See, Peony in Love

“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

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

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

“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

“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

“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.”
― Lisa See, Shanghai Girls

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

“If it is perfectly acceptable for a widow to disfigure herself or commit suicide to save face for her husband's family, why should a mother not be moved to extreme action by the loss of a child or children? We are their caretakers. We love them. We nurse them when they are sick. . . But no woman should live longer than her children. It is against the law of nature. If she does, why wouldn't she wish to leap from a cliff, hang from a branch, or swallow lye?”
― 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

“How can we not create a fantasy in our minds when the reality is so hard?”
― Lisa See, Peony in Love

“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

“I am still learning about love. I thought I understood it--not just mother love, but the love for one's parents, for one's husband, and for one's laotong. I've experienced the other types of love--pity love, respectful love and gratitude love. But looking at our secret fan with its messages written between Snow Flower and me over many years, I see that I didn't value the most important love--deep-heart love.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“No coincidence, no story.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together,”
― Lisa See, Lady Tan's Circle of Women