Vo Huy > Vo's Quotes

“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

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

“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

“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

“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 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

“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

“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

“The first lesson every child of Athena learned: Mom was the best at everything, and you should never, ever suggest otherwise.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re invincible. It just means that you’re brave enough to stand up and do what’s needed.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“Sometimes wisdom came from strange places, even from giant teenaged goldfish.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“Wisdom's daughter walks alone.
That didn't just mean without other people, Annabeth realized. It meant without any special powers.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“True success requires sacrifice.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“Swords can’t solve every problem.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“Love and war always go together. They are the peaks of human emotion! Evil and good, beauty and ugliness”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“Good luck is a sham. True success requires sacrifice.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“I am called Nemesis in both Greek and Roman. I do not change, because revenge is universal.”
― Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

“if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus

“We are fashioned creatures, but half made up.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“I looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“When it is time for you to leave this school, leave your job, or even leave this earth, you make sure you have worked hard to make sure it mattered you were even here.”
― Wes Moore, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Do you think that we're products of our environments? I think so, or maybe products of our expectations. Others' expectations of us or our expectations. I mean others' expectations that you take on as your own. I realize how difficult it is to seperate the two. The expectations that others place on us help us form our expectations of ourselves.”
― Wes Moore

“Life's impermanence, I realized, is what makes every single day so precious. It's what shapes our time here. It's what makes it so important than not a single moment be wasted.”
― Wes Moore - Bestselling author of The Other Wes Moore