Quotes from Saving Fish from Drowning

“I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“From what I have observed, when the anesthesia of love wears off, there is always the pain of consequences. You don't have to be stupid to marry the wrong man.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“A pious man explained to his followers: 'It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. "Don't be scared," I tell those fishes. "I am saving you from drowning." Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“Was there ever a true great love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections? I honestly don't think so. In part, this was my fault. It was my nature, I suppose. I could not let myself be that unmindful. Isn't that what love is-losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's fault, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he's beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally-that's the worst I think, deficient morals.

I always minded. I was always cautious of what could go wrong, what was already "not ideal". I paid attention to divorce rates. I ask you this: What's the chance of finding a lasting marriage? Twenty percent? Ten? Did I know any woman who escaped having her heart crushed like a recyclable can? Not a one. From what I have observed, when the anesthesia of love wears off, there is always the pain of consequences. You don't have to be stupid to marry the wrong man.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“With hope, a mind is always free.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“I have loved works of fiction precisely for their illusions, for the author's sleight-of-hand in showing me the magic, what appeared in the right hand but not in the left...”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally--that's the worst, I think, deficient morals. (Saving Fish From Drowning)”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“...A painting was a translation of the language of my heart.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“...A mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place. She teaches you the nature of happiness: what is the right amount, what is too much, and the kind that makes you want more of what is bad for you. A mother helps her baby flex her first feelings of pleasure. She teaches her when to later exercise restraint, or to take squealing joy in recognizing the fluttering leaves of the gingko tree, to sense a quieter but more profound satisfaction in chancing upon an everlasting pine. A mother enables you to realize that there are different levels of beauty and therein lie the sources of pleasure, some of which are popular and ordinary, and thus of brief value, and others of which are difficult and rare, and hence worth pursuing.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“The only thing certain in times of great uncertainty is that people will behave with great strength or weakness, and with very little else in between.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“A good government had to guide its people, sometimes gently, sometimes strictly, just as parents did. It could allow certain freedoms, but in a style that suited the country.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“I was greedy, she warned, and could not fill my heart with enough pleasure, my stomach with enough contentment, my body with enough sleep. I was like a rice basket with a rat hole at the bottom, and thus could not be satisfied and overflow, nor could I be filled. I would never know the full depth and breadth of love, beauty, or happiness. She said it like a curse.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I had placed them.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“I had thus learned to push down my feelings, to force myself to not care, to do nothing and let things happen, come what may.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“I read to escape to a more interesting world, not to be locked up in a sweltering prison and find myself vicariously standing among people who are tortured beyond the limits of sanity.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“When the anesthesia of love wears off,
you suffer the pain of consequence.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“Was there ever a great true love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections?...I could not let myself become that unmindful. Isn't that what love is - losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally - that's the worst, I think, deficient morals.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“[Karen Lundegaard] was quite frail, debilitated by metastatic breast cancer, which she had long known she had but for which she had been unable to get adequate treatment because she lacked medical insurance. ("If you mention anything about me," she said, "tell people that.")”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“Never show a weapon before you have to use it”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“Sólo recuerdas lo que quieres recordar. Sólo sabes lo que tu corazón te permite saber.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“bad, how likely is it to come”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“The gnarled pine, I would have said, touch it. This is China. Horticulturalists around the world have come to study it. Yet no one has ever been able to explain why it grows like a corkscrew, just as no one can adequately explain China. But like that tree, there it is, old, resilient, and oddly magnificent. Within that tree are the elements in nature that have inspired Chinese artists for centuries: gesture over geometry, subtlety over symmetry, constant flow over static form.
And the temples, walk and touch them. This is China. Don't merely stare at these murals and statues. Fly up to the crossbeams, get down on your hands and knees, and press your head to the floor tiles. Hide behind that pillar and come eye to eye with its flecks of paint. Imagine that you are the interior decorator who is a thousand years in age. Start with a bit of Tibetan Buddhism, plus a dash each of animism and Taoism. A hodgepodge, you say? No, what is in those temples is an amalgam that is pure Chinese, a lovely shabby elegance, a glorious new motley that makes China infinitely intriguing. Nothing is ever completely thrown away and replaced. If one period of influence falls out of favor, it is patched over. The old views still exist, one chipped layer beneath, ready to pop through with the slightest abrasion.
That is the Chinese aesthetic and also its spirit. Those are the traces that have affected all who have traveled along China's roads.”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“Look at that. There one family lives, kitchen is in China, bedroom is in Myanmar. In this way, this family eats in one country, sleeps in other. I think this house been standing there for many centuries, yes, long time, before anyone decided where one country stops, the other starts”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“My thinking is this: Her original mother, she did what she must. I, her in-between mother, I did what I must. That Japanese couple, they also did what they must. One day, this little girl will grow up, and she will be doing what she must. So you see, we all do what we must”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

“just like my mother, and if I”
― Amy Tan, quote from Saving Fish from Drowning

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“They would never know how lucky they had been. For a lifetime, mankind had achieved as much happiness as any race can ever know. It had been the Golden Age. But gold was also the color of sunset, of autumn: and only Karellen’s ears could catch the first wailings of the winter storms.”
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“You know what we need? We need to get jobs, get the fuck out of that crazy house,' Natalie said, dipping a McNugget into her sauce.

Yeah, right. Jobs doing what? Our only skills are oral sex and restraining agitated psychotics.”
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“The plain truth, I may as well admit it, is that I've never been really right in the head.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, quote from Journey to the End of the Night

“What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. Cora was right- we had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, as well as the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them were perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You couldn't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build a world from it.
So my true family was not just my mom, lost or found; my dad, gone from the start; and Cora, the only one who had really been there all along. It was Jamie, who took me in without question and gave me a future I once couldn't even imagine; Oliva, who did question, but also gave me answers; Harriet, who, like me, believed she needed no one and discovered otherwise. And then there was Nate.
Nate, who was a friend to me before I even knew what a friend was. Who picked me up, literally, over and over again, and never asked for anything in return except for my word and my understanding. I'd given him one but not the other, because at the time I thought I couldn't, and then proved myself right by doing exactly as my mother had, hurting to prevent from being hurt myself. Needing was so easy: it came naturally, like breathing. Being needed by someone else, though, that was the hard part. But as with giving help and accepting it, we had to do both to be made complete- like links overlapping to form a chain, or a lock finding the right key.
~Ruby (pgs 400-401)”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from Lock and Key

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