Amy Tan

Clare West

In this novel four Chinese mothers, who left their native land behind but not their old customs, and their four American-born daughters tell their stories about living life caught between two cultures. The mothers meet up and form their own club to gossip, play mah-jong and exchange memories.

The Joy Luck Club

Mariah crawford

My father thinks she was killed by her own thoughts. “She has a new idea inside her head,” said my father. “But before it could come out of her mouth, the thought grew too big and burst. It must have been a very bad idea.”

Rocio

Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be now where and disappear?

‘It’s not that we had no heart or eyes for pain. We were all afraid. We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. How much can you wish for a favorite warm coat that hangs in the closet of a house that burned down with your mother and father inside of it?

Im scared I’ll forget my mom and dad’s stories… what will I tell my children? They’ll never know or experience my mom and dad’s love. 

‘See my sisters, tell them about my mother?’ I say, nodding. ‘What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anouthing. She was my mother.’

I’m already forgetting my happy memories because it hurts so much to remember them. Will I eventually force myself to forget you? 

That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain

The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.

I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents’ promise. This means nothing to you, because go you promises mean nothing.

I worry that someday she will say, ‘Thank you, Grandmother, for the gold bracelet. I’ll never forget you.’ But later, she will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother.’

I can change but I’ll always be me. My genuine heart will always belong to me. No matter what happens, as long as I am true to me and my feelings, I will be okay.

A person has very strange thoughts when it seems that life is about to end.

I asked myself, What is true about a person? Would o change in the same way the river changes color but still be the same person?

And then I realized it was the first time I could see power of the wind.

I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind.

I was no longer scared. I could see what was inside me.

2023 was both for me: unseen and then seen, just to be forgotten and hated 

For all these years I kept my mouth closed so selfish desires would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me.

We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.

The Joy Luck Club quotes

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