The Joy Luck Club's Quotes Flashcards
In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over
there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of
her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her,
because I will make her speak only perfect American English.
Feathers from a Thousand Li Away
I’m shaking, trying to hold something inside. The last time I
saw them, at the funeral, I had broken down and cried big
gulping sobs. They must wonder how someone like me can take
my mother’s place. A friend once told me that my mother and I
were alike, that we had the same wispy hand gestures, the same
girlish laugh and sideways look. When I shyly told my mother
this, she seemed insulted and said, “You don’t even know little
percent of me! How can you be me?” And she’s right. How can I
be my mother at Joy Luck?
Jing Mei (June)
Not know your own mother? How can you say? Your mother is in your bones!
An Mei
I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents’ promise. This
means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing.
A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a
headache, if she has a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a
favorite movie on TV, she no longer has a promise.
Lindo
“I don’t believe you. Let me see the book.”
“It is written in Chinese. You cannot understand it. That is why
you must listen to me.”
The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates
I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible
strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from
others, and eventually, though neither of us knew it at the time,
chess games.
Waverly Jong
Maybe I never really gave myself a fair chance. I did pick up
the basics pretty quickly, and I might have become a good
pianist at that young age. But I was so determined not to try,
not to be anybody different that I learned to play only the most
ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns.
Jing Mei “June”
To this day, I believe my mother has the mysterious ability
to see things before they happen. She has a Chinese saying for
what she knows. Chunwang chihan: if the lips are gone, the teeth
will be cold. Which means, I suppose, one thing is always the
result of another.
Lena Saint Clair
And my mother loved to show me off, like one of the many
trophies she polished. She used to discuss my games as if
she had devised the strategies… and a hundred other useless
things that had nothing to do with my winning
Waverly Jong
The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and
enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on
my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course,
my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, My
mother was right. I am becoming Chinese.
Jing Mei (June)
“A mother is best. A mother knows what is inside you,” she
said above the singing voices. “A psyche-atricks will only make
you hulihudu, make you see heimongmong.”
An mei
That’s what she is. A Horse, born in 1918, destined to be
obstinate and frank to the point of tactlessness. She and I make
a bad combination, because I’m a Rabbit, born in 1951,
supposedly sensitive, with tendencies toward being thinskinned and skittery at the first sign of criticism.
Waverly
“You want me to be someone that I’m not!” I sobbed. “I’ll
never be the kind of daughter you want me to be… I wish I
wasn’t your daughter. I wish you weren’t my mother,” I shouted.
As I said these things I got scared. It felt… as if this awful side of
me had surfaced at last… And that’s when I remembered the
babies she had lost in China, the ones we never talked about.
“I wish I’d never been born!” I shouted. “I wish I were dead! Like
them.”
It was as if I had said the magic words Alakazam!—and her face
went blank.
Jing Mei
I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me – because
I had never seen that face before. I looked at my reflection,
blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me
was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had 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.
Jing Mei
“You can’t tell me because you don’t know! You don’t know
anything!” And the girl ran outside, jumped on her bicycle,
and in her hurry to get away, she fell before she even reached
the corner.
The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates
