The Joy Luck Club Key Quotes

Question 1

…made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages,…

Answer 1

…which we did. I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese. (JM)

Question 2

You don’t even know…

Answer 2

… little percent of me! How can you be me? (SY)

Question 3

My mother and I never really understood one another. We…

Answer 3

…translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more. (JM)

Question 4

Not know your own mother? How…

Answer 4

…can you say? Your mother is in your bones! (Aunties)

Question 5

You want me to be someone that I’m not!’ ‘I’ll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be… I wish…

Answer 5

…I wasn’t your daughter. I wish you weren’t my mother.’” “I wish I’d never been born! I wish I were dead! Like them.’ … – and her face went blank. (JM)

Question 6

Waverly had learned this skill, of choosing the best, from her mother, it was…

Answer 6

…only natural that her mother knew how to pick the next best ones… (JM)

Question 7

That’s the way Chinese mothers show they love their children, not through…

Answer 7

… hugs and kisses but with stern offerings of steamed dumplings. Duck’s gizzards and crab. (JM)

Question 8

‘Everybody else want best quality. You thinking different.’ She said it in a way…

Answer 8

…as if this were proof - proof of something good. (JM)

Question 9

‘See, I wore this on my skin, so when you put it on your skin, then you know my meaning. This is your life’s importance.’ …

Answer 9

…I wanted to give it back. I didn’t want to accept it. And yet I also felt as if I had already swallowed it. (JM)

Question 10

My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could… America was where…

Answer 10

…all my mother’s hopes lay. (JM)

Question 11

I can never remember things I didn’t…

Answer 11

…understand in the first place. (JM)

Question 12

She always said things that didn’t make any sense, that sounded…

Answer 12

…both good and bad at the same time. (JM)

Question 13

I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me – because I had never seen that face before. I looked at my reflection…. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful… I had…

Answer 13

…new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won’ts. I won’t let her change me, I promised to myself. I won’t be what I’m not. (JM)

Question 14

I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different that I…

Answer 14

…learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns. (JM)

Question 15

I think the carvings mean something, because shapes and details, which I never seem to notice until after they’re pointed out to me, always…

Answer 15

…mean something to Chinese people… she gave it to me after I got divorced. I guess my mother’s telling me I’m still worth something. (JM)