Top 200 Lisa See Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 4 of 5

151. “Finally, the nima returns to our plane. “Wrong cannot be hidden. An outside spirit is insulted because Deh-ja made a mistake in one of her ancestor offerings.”

— Lisa See

152. “You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you.”

— Lisa See

153. “A woman isn’t just one thing. The past is in us, constantly changing us. Heartache and failure shift our perspectives as do joy and triumphs. At any moment, on any given day, we can be friends, competitors, or enemies. We can be generous or stingy, loving or petty, helpful or untrustworthy.”

— Lisa See

154. “I used to think mothers-in-law are difficult the world over, but on that day I came to understand that they’re simply unknowable.”

— Lisa See

155. “I thought I could use idealism to solve my inner conflicts, but in healing my inner conflicts I destroyed my idealism.”

— Lisa See

156. “They say nothing to me in a very loud way.”

— Lisa See

157. “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

158. “A woman isn’t just one thing. The past is in us, constantly changing us. Heartache and failure shift perspectives as do joy and triumphs.”

— Lisa See

159. “How can I help change things if I sit by and do nothing?”

— Lisa See

160. “But there are certain books I would never put on a Kindle because you want to be able to look at graphs and photos or the footnotes and maps. You can’t see that.”

— Lisa See

161. “You look at me now and see an old face, but once I was beautiful.”

— Lisa See

162. “As obident as dogs and as stupid as water buffalo.”

— Lisa See

163. “She loves you. She’s just forgotten how to show it.”

— Lisa See

164. “You are very smart. You must be very well educated. You are very pretty. You must be very rich because you’re a writer.”

— Lisa See

165. “I think to really be literate in nu shu you only need about 600 characters because it is phonetic. So you’re able to then create many words out of one character.”

— Lisa See

166. “My hardcover sales are 17% down in books but up 400% in electronics.”

— Lisa See

167. “Because inside we still carry the dreams of what could have been, of what should have been, of what we wish could still be. This doesn’t mean we aren’t content. We are content, but the romantic longings of our girlhood have never entirely left us. It’s like Yen-Yen said all those years ago: ‘I look in the mirror and I’m surprised by what I see.’ I look in the mirror and still expect to see my Shanghai-girl self- not the wife and mother I’ve become.”

— Lisa See

168. “It used to happen in villages and towns in China that they would have – I guess you’d call them beauty contests – where all of the women of a particular village or town would be seated behind these screens or curtains with only their feet showing.”

— Lisa See

169. “Stories tell us how we should live.”

— Lisa See

170. “What can we do? We’re only women,” she says. But it’s because I’m a woman, that I dare to go.”

— Lisa See

171. “But anger can be dangerous and have unintended consequences.”

— Lisa See

172. “What the body knows and what the mind chooses to believe are two different things, after all.”

— Lisa See

173. “People write to me all the time, and I write back.”

— Lisa See

174. “Deep love-true-heart love-must grow. Back then I didn’t yet understand the burning kind of love, so instead I thought about the rice paddies I used to see on my daily walks down to the river with my brother when I still had all my milk teeth. Maybe I could make our love grow like a farmer made his crop to grow-through hard work, unwavering will, and the blessings of nature. How funny that I can remember that even now! Waaa! I knew so little about life, but I knew enough to think like a farmer.”

— Lisa See

175. “As A-ma said, every story, every dream, every waking minute of our lives is filled with one fateful coincidence after another.”

— Lisa See

176. “It took me me many years to realize that my perceptions at this time was completely wrong.”

— Lisa See

177. “Danseuse routine and my fame grew. I could walk into a.”

— Lisa See

178. “Every day Fu-shee, the smaller children, and I fan out in the hills around Green Dragon to strip trees of their bark and leaves, dig up roots and search for wild grass. We’ll eat anything, and we have. But you can’t eat a leather belt like it’s a crisp cucumber. You soak it, boil it, and chew on it for days.”

— Lisa See

179. “Well, Chinese used to be seen as low, right? Working on the railroad, in laundries, and stuff like that. Now they’re seen as smart and wealthy. I mean, isn’t there the stereotype of the model minority? I read an article for school that said people like us – not you, Dr. Rosen – are now labeled as inquisitive, persistent, and ambitious. With ingenuity, fortitude, and cleverness.”

— Lisa See

180. “The government labels the haenyeo a cultural heritage treasure – something dying out that must be preserved, if only in memory. How does it feel to be the last of the last?” If they’re academics, they’ll want to talk about Jeju’s matrifocal culture, explaining, “It’s not a matriarchy. Rather, it’s a society focused on women.”

— Lisa See

181. “Sometimes you must experience heartache to have a treasured result.”

— Lisa See

182. “Your tears will be added to the oceans of salty tears that wash in great waves across our planet. This I know. If you try to live, you can live on well.”

— Lisa See

183. “I grew up believing that rice was to nourish and that tea was to heal. Now I understand that tea is also to connect and to dream. That seduction is deeper and more profound than could happen with any man.”

— Lisa See

184. “Don’t blame yourself for things that maybe happened,” she said.”

— Lisa See

185. “How can the moon be scooped from the water’s surface, or flowers be plucked from the void?”

— Lisa See

186. “People keep asking me why I don’t return to China. I tell them I can’t return to a place I’ve never been. In.”

— Lisa See

187. “DR. ROSEN: Does the phrase grateful-but-angry have resonance for anyone? You can be grateful you have your mom and dad, because they love you and they’ve given you good lives with all kinds of privilege.”

— Lisa See

188. “It takes a lifetime to make a friend, but you can lose one in an hour,” she recites. “Life without a friend is life without sun. Life without a friend is death.”

— Lisa See

189. “My mother had died in the sea, but we could never forget that it gave us life.”

— Lisa See

190. “But when people suggested the haenyeo start using oxygen tanks, she, along with other divers around the island, refused. “Everything we do must be natural,” she’d told the collective, “otherwise we’ll harvest too much, deplete our wet fields, and earn nothing.” There, again, balance.”

— Lisa See

191. “As for children, every woman knows the fears and sorrows. Joy is a delicious luxury that we experience most cautiously, for tragedy conceals itself around every corner.”

— Lisa See

192. “Joy is a delicious luxury that we experience most cautiously, for tragedy conceals itself around every corner.”

— Lisa See

193. “I had to hold on to my anger and my bitterness as a way of honoring those I’d lost.”

— Lisa See

194. “Every mother must leave her children to work, and every mother suffers, bu we do it.”

— Lisa See

195. “Your mother will always exist in you. She will give you strength wherever you go.”

— Lisa See

196. “Every one of us could complain, but would that make our situation emotionally easier or physically more comfortable?”

— Lisa See

197. “Store up good deeds and you will meet with good. Store up evil actions and you will meet with evil.”

— Lisa See

198. “On land, you will be a mother. In the sea, you can be a grieving widow. Your tears will be added to the oceans of salty tears that wash in great waves across our planet. This I know. If you try to live, you can live on well.”

— Lisa See

199. “It is our duty to be keepers and managers of the sea. If we protect our wet fields, they will continue to provide for us.”

— Lisa See

200. “You are a little girl, so you are still in milk days.”

— Lisa See