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Lisa See Quotes

Lisa See is an American writer and novelist. Her books include On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family , a detailed account of See's family history, and the novels Flower Net , The Interior , Dragon Bones , Snow Flower and the Secret Fan , Peony in Love and Shanghai Girls , which made it to the 2010 New York Times bestseller list. Both Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan received honorable mentions from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature.

Flower Net, The Interior, and Dragon Bones make up the Red Princess mystery series. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love focus on the lives of Chinese women in the 19th and 17th centuries respectively. Shanghai Girls chronicles the lives of two sisters who come to Los Angeles in arranged marriages and face, among other things, the pressures put on Chinese-Americans during the anti-Communist mania of the 1950s. See completed a sequel titled Dreams of Joy, released in May 2011. China Dolls deals with Chinese American nightclub performers of the 1930s and 1940s. Her latest novel is The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane .

Writing under the pen name Monica Highland, See, her mother Carolyn See, and John Espey, published three novels: Lotus Land , 110 Shanghai Road , and Greetings from Southern California . She has written a personal essay for Half and Half.

See has donated her personal papers to UCLA. During the 2012 Golden Dragon Chinese New Year Parade in Los Angeles Chinatown, See served as the Grand Marshal.

✵ 18. February 1955
Lisa See photo

Works

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Peony in Love
Shanghai Girls
Lisa See: 22 quotes3 likes

Famous Lisa See Quotes

“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 book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: 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 book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

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

Lisa See book Peony in Love

Source: Peony in Love

“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.”

Lisa See book Shanghai Girls

Source: Shanghai Girls

“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 book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Lisa See Quotes about life

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

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: 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 book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Lisa See Quotes

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

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“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.”

Lisa See book Peony in Love

Source: Peony in Love

“Anyone who says that women do not have influence in men's decisions makes a vast and stupid mistake.”

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

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

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

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

Lisa See book Shanghai Girls

Source: Shanghai Girls

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

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

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

Lisa See book Peony in Love

Source: Peony in Love

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

Lisa See book Dreams of Joy

Source: Dreams of Joy

“Perhaps he was afraid as I was that we'd be caught. Or perhaps he was breathing me in just as I was letting him come into my lungs, my eyes, my heart.”

Lisa See book Peony in Love

Source: Peony in Love

“all girls have dreams, even if our destinies are set.”

Lisa See book Peony in Love

Peony in Love

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