Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Quotes

“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one in the same.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Anyone who says that women do not have influence in men's decisions makes a vast and stupid mistake.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“When I knew I couldn't suffer another moment of pain, and tears fell on my bloody bindings, my mother spoke softly into my ear, encouraging me to go one more hour, one more day, one more week, reminding me of the rewards I would have if I carried on a little longer. In this way, she taught me how to endure — not just the physical trials of footbinding and childbearing but the more torturous pain of the heart, mind, and soul.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“In our country we call this type of mother love teng ai. My son has told me that in men's writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love. That is a mother's love.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“If it is perfectly acceptable for a widow to disfigure herself or commit suicide to save face for her husband's family, why should a mother not be moved to extreme action by the loss of a child or children? We are their caretakers. We love them. We nurse them when they are sick. . . But no woman should live longer than her children. It is against the law of nature. If she does, why wouldn't she wish to leap from a cliff, hang from a branch, or swallow lye?”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“In every message she spoke of birds, of flight, of the world away. Even back then, she flew against what was presented to her. I wanted to cling to her wings and soar, no matter how intimidated I was.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I am still learning about love. I thought I understood it--not just mother love, but the love for one's parents, for one's husband, and for one's laotong. I've experienced the other types of love--pity love, respectful love and gratitude love. But looking at our secret fan with its messages written between Snow Flower and me over many years, I see that I didn't value the most important love--deep-heart love.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“There is no life without death. That is the true meaning of yin and yang”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one and the same. 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.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I know a lot about women and their suffering, but I still know almost nothing about men.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“المرأة قد تكون يائسة ولكن لا ينبغي عليها أبدا ان تسمح لأحد برؤيتها في مستوى أقل من مستوى المرأة الراقية”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Snow Flower was my old same for life. I had a greater and deeper love for her than I could ever feel for a person who was my husband.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“When I knew I couldn't suffer another moment of pain, and tears fell on my bloody bindings, my mother spoke softly into my ear, encouraging me to go one more hour, one more day, one more week, reminding me of the rewards I would have if I carried on a little longer. In this way, she taught me how to endure--not just the physical trials of footbinding and childbearing but the more tortuous pain of the heart, mind, and soul. She was also pointing out my defects and teaching me how to use them to my benefit. In our country, we call this type of mother love teng ai. My son has told me that in men's writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love. That is a mother's love.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“the human body is a miniature version of the universe - the eyes and ears are the sun and moon, breath is air, blood is rain.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“All these types of love come out of duty, respect, and gratitude. Most of them, as the women in my county know, are sources of sadness, rupture, and brutality.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I’ve never thought much about whether I was happy or if I had fun as a child. I was a so-so girl who lived with a so-so family in a so-so village. I didn’t know that there might be another way to live, and I didn’t worry about it either.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Then it dawned on me that men throughout the country had to know about nu shu (women's written word). How could they not? They wore it on their embroidered shoes. They saw us weaving our messages into cloth. They heard us singing our songs and showing off our third-day wedding books. Men just considered our writing beneath them.

It is said men have the hearts of iron, while women are made of water. This comes through men's writing and women's writing. Men's writing has more than 50,000 characters, each uniquely different, each with deep meanings and nuances. Our women's writing has 600 characters, which we use phonetically, like babies to create about 10,000 words. Men's writing takes a lifetime to learn and understand. Women's writing is something we pick up as girls, and we rely on the context to coax meaning. Men write about the outer realm of literature, accounts, and crop yields; women write about the inner realm of children, daily chores, and emotions. The men in the Lu household were proud of their wives' fluency in nu shu and dexterity in embroidery, though these things had as much importance to survival as a pig's fart.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Anyone who tells you that the Yao people never care for their daughters is lying. We may be worthless. We may be raised for another family. But often we are loved and cherished, despite our natal families' best efforts not to have feelings for us.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“I have a whole life to tell; I have nothing left to lose and few to offend.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“The three most important powers are Heaven, Earth and Man. The three luminaries are the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. Opportunities given by Heaven are not equal to the advantages afforded by Earth, while the advantages of Earth do not match the blessings that come from harmony among men”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Our words had to be circumspect. We could not write anything too negative about our circumstances. This was tricky, since the very form of a married woman's letter needed to include the usual complaints -- that we were pathetic, powerless, worked to the bone, homesick, and sad. We were supposed to speak directly about our feelings without appearing ungrateful, no-account, or unfilial.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“All the time, I looked out our lattice window. I watched the birds fly by. I followed the clouds on their travels. I studied the moon as it grew larger, then shrank. So much happened outside my window that I almost forgot what was happening inside that room.”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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”
― Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan