Lisa See Quotes

Having a baby is painful in order to show how serious a thing life is.

Don't ever feel that you have to hide who you are. Nothing good ever comes from keeping secrets like that.

Let those who believe, believe. Let those who doubt, doubt.

Seeing something once is better than hearing about it a hundred times. Doing something once is better than seeing it a hundred times.

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.

I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one in the same.

People say you need to be strong, smart, and lucky to survive hard times, war, a natural disaster, or physical torture. But I say emotional abuse—anxiety, fear, guilt, and degradation—is far worse and much harder to survive.

Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.

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.

i would rather be married to broken jade than flawless clay

Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want.

When you don’t have much, having less isn’t so bad.

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

There is no life without death. That is the true meaning of yin and yang

a laotong relationship is made by choice...when we first looked in each other's eyes in the palanquin I felt something special pass between us--like a spark to start a fire or a seed to grow rice. But a single spark is not enough to warm a room nor is a single seed enough to grow a fruitful crop. Deep love--true-heart love--must grow.

People come in and out of our lives, and the true test of friendship is whether you can pick back up right where you left off the last time you saw each other.

When people are alive they love, when they die, they keep loving. If love ends when person dies, that is not real love

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming -- weren't our dreams what gave us strength, hope, and desire?

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.

While she is lovely, we need to remember that her face is not what distinguishes her. Her beauty is a reflection of the virtue and talent she keeps inside.

I wonder if there was anything I would have done differently. I hope I would have done everything differently, except I know everything would have turned out the same. That's the meaning of fate.

You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman.

Maybe we're all like that with our mothers. They seem ordinary until one day they're extraordinary.

What stays with me most is a general sense of loss, unease, and longing for the past that cannot be relieved.

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.