Jean Kwok > Quotes

“What a relationship looks like on the outside isn't the same as what it's like on the inside. You can be more in love with someone in your mind than with the person you see every day.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“Sometimes our fate is different from the one we imagined for ourselves.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“Nobody can change who you are, except for you.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“I never want to love someone like that,not even him,so much that there would be no room left for myself,so much that I wouldn't be able to survive if he left me.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“Brains are beautiful.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“I was a fool. I should have grabbed him when I could have had him all to myself, snatched him up like a ripe mango at the market. But how was I to know that this was what love felt like?”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“You may need to change your dreams.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“We would be allowed to work and not cause any trouble for her, but she didn't want us to be any more successful than she was”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“I have not been so much pushed by winds as pulled forward by the force of my decisions.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“No matter how flawed someone else may be, that doesn't give us the right to be less than we are, does it? We are decent people and we repay our debts.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“In love and life, we never know when we are telling ourselves stories. We are the ultimate unreliable narrators.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“But I learned that if you do not speak, no one will ever hear you.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“There's a Chinese saying that the fates are winds that blow through our lives from every angle, urging us along the paths of time. Those who are strong-willed may fight the storm and possibly choose their own road, while the weak must go where they are blown. I say I have not been so much pushed by winds as pulled forward by the force of my decisions.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“When I’m with you, I could drink water and be full.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“It may not seem like much - a few kisses in the dark - but it was enough to burn a hole like an ulcer in my heart.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“Dice un proverbio chino que el destino es como un temporal de vientos que, provenientes de todos los rincones, azotan nuestras vidas y nos empujan por las sendas del tiempo; quienes posean fuerza de voluntad, lucharán contra la tormenta y podrán escoger su propio camino, mientras que los débiles acabarán allá adonde los lleve la tempestad.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“if you do not speak, no one will ever hear you.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“Ma told me that while nothing can replace that which is lost, emptiness creates room for new growth.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“I began to see beauty as something that could be unleashed from within a person rather than a set of physical features like a perfect nose or big eyes.”
― Jean Kwok, Mambo in Chinatown

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
― Jean Kwok, Mambo in Chinatown

“Once you loved him, everything in your life fell into a before and after. Nothing would ever be the same.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“I would have chosen statistical probabilities over luck any day.”
― Jean Kwok, Girl in Translation

“Now, many years later, I was note sure if we had truly loved each other or merely the versions of ourselves we had seen reflected in the other's eyes-as if we had acted out a play together, both of us audience and player alike.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“I was beginning to realize that I had kept myself so busy to avoid examining my life, and now that I had the chance, I did not like it at all.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“So quickly did we shed the wisdom and kindness of accumulated years, how easily we reverted to our former selves in the company of those who have known us before.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“I am in love with imperfection. Some of my mistakes wind up being the most interesting work I have ever done.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“The core power of tai chi begins with awareness. Our stance is the posture of infinity: not tense but relaxed and upright, expectant. From this nothingness, all things begin.”
― Jean Kwok, Mambo in Chinatown

“but it’s hard to celebrate with all your heart when your festivity isn’t reflected by the society around you—no films on television, no displays in department stores, no friends with gifts, and no propaganda about peace and love whatsoever. Sylvie and I always had to go to school on Chinese New Year.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“Any time I had a teacher in elementary or high school who’d taught Sylvie, they’d say, “Ah, you’re Sylvie Lee’s little sister,” rife with anticipation. I would then watch as their high hopes turned to bewilderment at my stuttering slowness. This was followed by their disappointment and, finally, their indifference.”
― Jean Kwok, Searching for Sylvie Lee

“It felt as if the rest of the world knew something I didn't...”
― Jean Kwok, Mambo in Chinatown