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Top 50 Lisa Ko Quotes (2025 Update)

Lisa Ko Quote: “You’re a fake. What’s your real name? Where are you really from?”

1. “You’re a fake. What’s your real name? Where are you really from?”

Lisa Ko Quote: “If he could just talk to his mother in person, maybe he could figure out who he should be.”

2. “If he could just talk to his mother in person, maybe he could figure out who he should be.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “One week later, tucked into a double bed sheathed with red flannel, Deming Guo awoke with the crumbs of dialect on his tongue, smudges and smears of dissolving syllables, nouns and verbs washed out to sea. One language had outseeped another; New York City had provided him with an arsenal of new words. He’d bled English vowels and watched his mother’s face fall.”

3. “One week later, tucked into a double bed sheathed with red flannel, Deming Guo awoke with the crumbs of dialect on his tongue, smudges and smears of dissolving syllables, nouns and verbs washed out to sea. One language had outseeped another; New York City had provided him with an arsenal of new words. He’d bled English vowels and watched his mother’s face fall.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Maybe it wasn’t about the moving to new places, but about the challenge of staying put.”

4. “Maybe it wasn’t about the moving to new places, but about the challenge of staying put.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “It was a funny thing, forgiveness. You could spend years being angry with someone and then realize you no longer felt the same, that your usual mode of thinking had slipped away when you weren’t noticing.”

5. “It was a funny thing, forgiveness. You could spend years being angry with someone and then realize you no longer felt the same, that your usual mode of thinking had slipped away when you weren’t noticing.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “My new life was unstable and unsure, but each new day was shot through with new possibility.”

6. “My new life was unstable and unsure, but each new day was shot through with new possibility.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “It was home, a home, but he knew he would have to leave here, too.”

7. “It was home, a home, but he knew he would have to leave here, too.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Daniel was malleable, everyone and no one, a collector of moods, a careful observer of the right thing to say. He watched other people’s reactions before deciding on his own; he could be fun or serious or whatever was most strategic, whoever you wanted him to be.”

8. “Daniel was malleable, everyone and no one, a collector of moods, a careful observer of the right thing to say. He watched other people’s reactions before deciding on his own; he could be fun or serious or whatever was most strategic, whoever you wanted him to be.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “In Ridgeborough, when Deming Guo was no longer a name that was said aloud, he used to picture the Other Deming and Other Mama, still living in Queens. It was a sort of comfort, bittersweet; at least they’d remained together.”

9. “In Ridgeborough, when Deming Guo was no longer a name that was said aloud, he used to picture the Other Deming and Other Mama, still living in Queens. It was a sort of comfort, bittersweet; at least they’d remained together.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “She wasn’t listening to him. He recalled how she and Peter had insisted on English, his new name, the right education. How better and more hinged on their ideas of success, their plans. Mama, Chinese, the Bronx, Deming: they had never been enough. He shivered, and for a brief, horrible moment, he could see himself the way he realized they saw him – as someone who needed to be saved.”

10. “She wasn’t listening to him. He recalled how she and Peter had insisted on English, his new name, the right education. How better and more hinged on their ideas of success, their plans. Mama, Chinese, the Bronx, Deming: they had never been enough. He shivered, and for a brief, horrible moment, he could see himself the way he realized they saw him – as someone who needed to be saved.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “It was that kind of mindfuck: to be too visible and invisible at the same time, in the ways it mattered the most.”

11. “It was that kind of mindfuck: to be too visible and invisible at the same time, in the ways it mattered the most.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “So I’d grown up eating my words, and it wasn’t until later that that I realized how many had gotten backed up inside me. In the factory dorm, sentences spilled out of me like a broken faucet, and when I moved even further away and saw children splashing into rivers spurting from fire hydrants, water pouring into the streets like it was endless, I would see my younger self in that hydrant, but tugged open, a hungry stream.”

12. “So I’d grown up eating my words, and it wasn’t until later that that I realized how many had gotten backed up inside me. In the factory dorm, sentences spilled out of me like a broken faucet, and when I moved even further away and saw children splashing into rivers spurting from fire hydrants, water pouring into the streets like it was endless, I would see my younger self in that hydrant, but tugged open, a hungry stream.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “You could try to do all the right things and still feel wrong inside.”

13. “You could try to do all the right things and still feel wrong inside.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “He picked apart the words she said, hunting for clues, the way his English teachers made them read poems and spend twenty minutes talking about a sentence, the meaning behind the meaning. The meaning behind her telling him about her life. The meaning of Florida. The meaning of her not coming home.”

14. “He picked apart the words she said, hunting for clues, the way his English teachers made them read poems and spend twenty minutes talking about a sentence, the meaning behind the meaning. The meaning behind her telling him about her life. The meaning of Florida. The meaning of her not coming home.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Music was a language of its own, and soon it would become his third language, a half-diminished seventh to a major seventh to a minor seventh as pinchy-sweet as flipping between Chinese tones. American English was loose major fifths; Fuzhounese angled sevenths and ninths.”

15. “Music was a language of its own, and soon it would become his third language, a half-diminished seventh to a major seventh to a minor seventh as pinchy-sweet as flipping between Chinese tones. American English was loose major fifths; Fuzhounese angled sevenths and ninths.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “All this time, he’d been waiting for his real life to begin: Once he was accepted by Roland’s friends and the band made it big. Once he found his mother. Then, things would change. But his life had been happening all along, in the jolt of the orange juice on his tongue or how he dreamt in two languages, how his students’ faces looked when they figured out the meaning of a new word, the wisp of smoke as he blew out his birthday candles. The surge and turn and crunch of a perfect melody.”

16. “All this time, he’d been waiting for his real life to begin: Once he was accepted by Roland’s friends and the band made it big. Once he found his mother. Then, things would change. But his life had been happening all along, in the jolt of the orange juice on his tongue or how he dreamt in two languages, how his students’ faces looked when they figured out the meaning of a new word, the wisp of smoke as he blew out his birthday candles. The surge and turn and crunch of a perfect melody.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Whenever he had looked into a mirror during the past ten years, it had felt like nobody resembled him. But she had been with him.”

17. “Whenever he had looked into a mirror during the past ten years, it had felt like nobody resembled him. But she had been with him.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “He loved cursing in Chinese, the breadth of options not available in English. He had trouble remembering the words for map and computer, but curses, those he knew by heart.”

18. “He loved cursing in Chinese, the breadth of options not available in English. He had trouble remembering the words for map and computer, but curses, those he knew by heart.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Always be prepared, she liked to say. Never rely on anyone else to give you things you could get yourself. She despised laziness, softness, people who were weak. She had few friends, but was true to the ones she had. She could hold a fierce grudge, would walk an extra three blocks to another grocery store because, two years ago, a cashier at the one around the corner had smirked at her lousy English. It was lousy, Deming agreed.”

19. “Always be prepared, she liked to say. Never rely on anyone else to give you things you could get yourself. She despised laziness, softness, people who were weak. She had few friends, but was true to the ones she had. She could hold a fierce grudge, would walk an extra three blocks to another grocery store because, two years ago, a cashier at the one around the corner had smirked at her lousy English. It was lousy, Deming agreed.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Then the shoreline would grown dimmer and the blue would shoot in all directions, filling the frame around me, the sky so big it could swallow me, and I cracked open with happiness.”

20. “Then the shoreline would grown dimmer and the blue would shoot in all directions, filling the frame around me, the sky so big it could swallow me, and I cracked open with happiness.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “I need to make him meals and buy him clothes and make sure I’m loving and caring and patient so I don’t mess him up more than he already is.”

21. “I need to make him meals and buy him clothes and make sure I’m loving and caring and patient so I don’t mess him up more than he already is.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “The boat rocked in the waves, and as I saw the lights of Kowloon come through the fog, I held the railing, breathless. How wrong I had been to assume this feeling had been lost forever. This lightheaded uncertainty, all my fear and joy – I could return here, punching the sky. Because I had found her: Polly Guo. Wherever I went next, I would never let her go again... The water was Minjiang, New York, Fuzhou, but most of all, it was you.”

22. “The boat rocked in the waves, and as I saw the lights of Kowloon come through the fog, I held the railing, breathless. How wrong I had been to assume this feeling had been lost forever. This lightheaded uncertainty, all my fear and joy – I could return here, punching the sky. Because I had found her: Polly Guo. Wherever I went next, I would never let her go again... The water was Minjiang, New York, Fuzhou, but most of all, it was you.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “The pain of missing you became amorphous; it was like missing a person I no longer knew.”

23. “The pain of missing you became amorphous; it was like missing a person I no longer knew.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “My father used to say women yapped too much, that some women would be better off not talking at all. So I’d grown up eating my words, and it wasn’t until later that I realized how many had gotten backed up inside me.”

24. “My father used to say women yapped too much, that some women would be better off not talking at all. So I’d grown up eating my words, and it wasn’t until later that I realized how many had gotten backed up inside me.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “The sky was so clear and blue, so striking in its stillness, that I wanted to cry.”

25. “The sky was so clear and blue, so striking in its stillness, that I wanted to cry.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Everyone had stories they told themselves to get through the days.”

26. “Everyone had stories they told themselves to get through the days.”

27. “He was looking for hidden facts. A sign pointing him toward what he should do next. Yet there was not a single photograph in the apartment. No squirreled away shoebox of sentimental keepsakes. No hidden diaries or items that could confess any aspect of his mother and Yung beyond what they portrayed to him. They existed only in the present. Their lines as brand new as their apartment.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “It’s a terrible feeling, to be pitied, to have thought you were excelling but then be reminded of how you weren’t.”

28. “It’s a terrible feeling, to be pitied, to have thought you were excelling but then be reminded of how you weren’t.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “If a woman was unmarried it was her fault for being ugly or independent; if a woman was too devoted to her husband it was her fault for being mushy and desperate; if a husband had a girl on the side it was the wife’s fault for driving him away and both the mistress and wife’s faults for letting themselves get taken advantage of.”

29. “If a woman was unmarried it was her fault for being ugly or independent; if a woman was too devoted to her husband it was her fault for being mushy and desperate; if a husband had a girl on the side it was the wife’s fault for driving him away and both the mistress and wife’s faults for letting themselves get taken advantage of.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “No one had told me I could have such love for another person. When I thought of anything harmful happening to you the love burned a little, like a rash, but when I held you and you were calm, the love was beaming, like sunlight through the leaves of a tree.”

30. “No one had told me I could have such love for another person. When I thought of anything harmful happening to you the love burned a little, like a rash, but when I held you and you were calm, the love was beaming, like sunlight through the leaves of a tree.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “You could play it one way and play it another, the same note sounding different depending on how you decided to hear it. You could try to do all the right things and still feel wrong inside.”

31. “You could play it one way and play it another, the same note sounding different depending on how you decided to hear it. You could try to do all the right things and still feel wrong inside.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “I was often fatigued by the city, its bad breath belching through vents in the pavement, a guy testing his cell phone ringtones on a packed subway.”

32. “I was often fatigued by the city, its bad breath belching through vents in the pavement, a guy testing his cell phone ringtones on a packed subway.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Deming and his mother loved everything bagels, the sheer balls of it, the New York audacity that a bagel could proclaim to be everything, even if it was only topped with sesame seeds and poppy seeds and salt.”

33. “Deming and his mother loved everything bagels, the sheer balls of it, the New York audacity that a bagel could proclaim to be everything, even if it was only topped with sesame seeds and poppy seeds and salt.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Because if he knew, then it had been real, not a nightmare I could just write off as my imagination. Like how talking to you reminded me of the nightmare of losing you.”

34. “Because if he knew, then it had been real, not a nightmare I could just write off as my imagination. Like how talking to you reminded me of the nightmare of losing you.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “They were adept at making meals even their friends found disgusting. Later, these meals would be the ones Deming missed the most: fried rice and salami showered with garlic powder from a big plastic bottle, instant noodles steeped in ketchup topped with American cheese and Tabasco.”

35. “They were adept at making meals even their friends found disgusting. Later, these meals would be the ones Deming missed the most: fried rice and salami showered with garlic powder from a big plastic bottle, instant noodles steeped in ketchup topped with American cheese and Tabasco.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “You couldn’t omit your own child from the story of your life, like it was no big deal.”

36. “You couldn’t omit your own child from the story of your life, like it was no big deal.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “He basked in her barbed teasing, recalled her toughest, more resilient love. How different it was from Kay’s exposed emotions. His mother had never demanded his reassurance.”

37. “He basked in her barbed teasing, recalled her toughest, more resilient love. How different it was from Kay’s exposed emotions. His mother had never demanded his reassurance.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Sandie has followed all the rules, but the rules are not fair. It is this helplessness, this ruthless self-pity, that makes her teary and furious.”

38. “Sandie has followed all the rules, but the rules are not fair. It is this helplessness, this ruthless self-pity, that makes her teary and furious.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Daniel was malleable, everyone and no one, a collector of moods, a careful observer of the right thing to say.”

39. “Daniel was malleable, everyone and no one, a collector of moods, a careful observer of the right thing to say.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “I’m often bothered by this notion that literature shouldn’t be political. How can you separate art from the world it’s created in, and why would you want to?”

40. “I’m often bothered by this notion that literature shouldn’t be political. How can you separate art from the world it’s created in, and why would you want to?”

Lisa Ko Quote: “I knew you couldn’t remember, and I hated when adults spoke to children like they were idiots.”

41. “I knew you couldn’t remember, and I hated when adults spoke to children like they were idiots.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “The other instructors, even his mother, laughed at him for making work harder for himself and not teaching the workbook. But his students were awake, engaged, and he was willing to be held up for their amusement and curiosity. When he said that they could ask him anything they wanted, so long as they asked in English, they shouted out questions.”

42. “The other instructors, even his mother, laughed at him for making work harder for himself and not teaching the workbook. But his students were awake, engaged, and he was willing to be held up for their amusement and curiosity. When he said that they could ask him anything they wanted, so long as they asked in English, they shouted out questions.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “The disc of a record was hardier yet more delicate than plasticky CDs. A record was to be treasured, its circle scratches a mysterious language, a furtive tattoo.”

43. “The disc of a record was hardier yet more delicate than plasticky CDs. A record was to be treasured, its circle scratches a mysterious language, a furtive tattoo.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “No matter how tired I was, I always felt more awake when I walked.”

44. “No matter how tired I was, I always felt more awake when I walked.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “He had never known how exhausting it was to be conspicuous.”

45. “He had never known how exhausting it was to be conspicuous.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “They watched DVDs in Hung’s apartment on Valentine Avenue for so long they fell asleep and woke up and fell asleep again, cranking the volume until the car chases and gunfire soothed the cold horror skittering inside him. Where was Mama?”

46. “They watched DVDs in Hung’s apartment on Valentine Avenue for so long they fell asleep and woke up and fell asleep again, cranking the volume until the car chases and gunfire soothed the cold horror skittering inside him. Where was Mama?”

Lisa Ko Quote: “Two weeks passed by. An Incredible American returned to Minjiang and had a party. He hadn’t been born an Incredible American but a mere villager like the rest of us, but had become an Incredible American by taking a train to Kunming, walking through the Burmese mountains, flying from Thailand to America, where he landed a job in a restaurant in Los Angeles...”

47. “Two weeks passed by. An Incredible American returned to Minjiang and had a party. He hadn’t been born an Incredible American but a mere villager like the rest of us, but had become an Incredible American by taking a train to Kunming, walking through the Burmese mountains, flying from Thailand to America, where he landed a job in a restaurant in Los Angeles...”

Lisa Ko Quote: “I knew the proper words to respond, but didn’t say them, didn’t want to give you the power of making me switch languages, to talk only on your terms.”

48. “I knew the proper words to respond, but didn’t say them, didn’t want to give you the power of making me switch languages, to talk only on your terms.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “In the city, he had been just another kid. He had never known how exhausting it was to be conspicuous.”

49. “In the city, he had been just another kid. He had never known how exhausting it was to be conspicuous.”

Lisa Ko Quote: “He had never allowed himself to fully trust his choices before.”

50. “He had never allowed himself to fully trust his choices before.”

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