The Joy Luck Club

I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child...

I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.

My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club. I am to replace my mother, whose seat at the mah jong table has been empty since she died two months ago. My father thinks she was killed by her own thoughts.

Only two kind of daughters. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!

Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.

Over the years, she told me the same story, except for the ending, which grew darker, casting long shadows into her life, and eventually into mine.

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

Why are you attracted only to Chinese nonsense?

My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.

Now that I'm angry at Harold, it's hard to remember what was so remarkable about him.

Look at this face. Do you see my foolish hope?

I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.

For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.

I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won'ts. I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not.

I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?

On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.

I have always known a thing before it happens.

After the gold was removed from my body I felt lighter, more free. They say this is what happens if you lack metal. You begin to think as an independent person.

That was the night, in the kitchen, that I realized I was no better than who I was... And I no longer felt angry at Waverly. I felt tired and foolish, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind and discover there was no one there.

When I want something to happen — or not happen — I begin to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.

I found the opportunity.

It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.

Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.

Your father is not my first husband. You are not those babies.