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41 " But I was still hurt. These past few years, I’d been obliged to accept orders from the man from the Village Fishery Association, but my consolation had come from knowing I was giving my daughter the best education possible. She was smart and ambitious. She knew things I would never know. But now I saw other realities: You can do everything for a child. You can encourage her to read and do her math homework. You can forbid her to ride a bike, giggle too much, or see a boy. I’d just asked her to promise she wouldn’t see Yo-chan or Mi-ja again. She’d done so grudgingly. Sometimes everything you do is as pointless and as ineffective as shouting into the wind. "
― Lisa See , The Island of Sea Women
42 " I’d never waste the hours of light in the darkness of slumber. "
43 " The three-step farming system that gives our pigs food from our behinds, fertilizer for our dry fields from the pigs’ behinds, and a pig that can eventually be eaten. "
44 " Don’t blame yourself for things that maybe happened,” she said. "
45 " You can love your mother, and she still might leave you. You can love or hate the sea, but it will always be there. Forever. The sea has been the center of her life. It has nurtured her and stolen from her, but it has never left. "
46 " You are a haenyeo! Never for one moment believe you are unworthy. "
47 " How different it is with friendship. No one picks a friend for us; we come together by choice. We are not tied together through ceremony or the responsibility to create a son; we tie ourselves together through moments. The spark when we first meet. Laughter and tears shared. Secrets packed away to be treasured, hoarded, and protected. The wonder that someone can be so different from you and yet still understand your heart in a way no one else ever will. "
48 " But anger can be dangerous and have unintended consequences. "
49 " Every mother must leave her children to work, and every mother suffers, bu we do it. "
50 " Her house is the nest where she hides the joy, laughter, sorrows, and "
51 " The government labels the haenyeo a cultural heritage treasure—something dying out that must be preserved, if only in memory. How does it feel to be the last of the last?” If they’re academics, they’ll want to talk about Jeju’s matrifocal culture, explaining, “It’s not a matriarchy. Rather, it’s a society focused on women. "
52 " The sea, it is said, is like a mother. The salt water, the pulse and surges of the current, the magnified beat of your heart, and the muffled sounds reverberating through the water together recall the womb. "
53 " hers was just one of many loud voices, since the ears of all haenyeo are damaged over time by water pressure. "
54 " You look at me now and see an old face, but once I was beautiful. "
55 " wants to help,” Clara says in her childish Jeju dialect. Young-sook watches the strangers try to assist her grandson as he loads the bags of algae onto the flatbed. Once everything is secured, she climbs behind her grandson and wraps her arms around his waist. She nudges "
56 " On land, you will be a mother. In the sea, you can be a grieving widow. Your tears will be added to the oceans of salty tears that wash in great waves across our planet. This I know. If you try to live, you can live on well. "
57 " They did this to me. They did that to me.’ A woman who thinks that way will never overcome her anger. You are not being punished for your anger. You’re being punished by your anger. "
58 " After bracken is picked nine times, it will sprout again. The saying Fall down eight times, stand up nine reminds us of this and symbolizes the wish for the dead to pave the way for future generations "
59 " I had to hold on to my anger and my bitterness as a way of honoring those I'd lost. "
60 " Every mother must leave her children to work, and every mother suffers, but we do it. "