Saving Fish from Drowning QUOTES

2 " I had thus learned to push down my feelings, to force myself to not care, to do nothing and let things happen, come what may. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

4 " ...A mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place. She teaches you the nature of happiness: what is the right amount, what is too much, and the kind that makes you want more of what is bad for you. A mother helps her baby flex her first feelings of pleasure. She teaches her when to later exercise restraint, or to take squealing joy in recognizing the fluttering leaves of the gingko tree, to sense a quieter but more profound satisfaction in chancing upon an everlasting pine. A mother enables you to realize that there are different levels of beauty and therein lie the sources of pleasure, some of which are popular and ordinary, and thus of brief value, and others of which are difficult and rare, and hence worth pursuing. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

6 " I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

8 " A pious man explained to his followers: 'It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. "Don't be scared," I tell those fishes. "I am saving you from drowning." Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

10 " With hope, a mind is always free. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

12 " While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

14 " ...As she grew older, she was aware of her changing position on mortality. In her youth, the topic of death was philosophical; in her thirties it was unbearable and in her forties unavoidable. In her fifties, she had dealt with it in more rational terms, arranging her last testament, itemizing assets and heirlooms, spelling out the organ donation, detailing the exact words for her living will. Now, in her sixties, she was back to being philosophical. Death was not a loss of life, but the culmination of a series of releases. It was devolving into less and less. You had to release yourself from vanity, desire, ambition, suffering, and frustration - all the accoutrements of the I, the ego. And if you die, you would disappear, leave no trace, evaporate into nothingness... "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

16 " The only thing certain in times of great uncertainty is that people will behave with great strength or weakness, and with very little else in between. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

18 " I was greedy, she warned, and could not fill my heart with enough pleasure, my stomach with enough contentment, my body with enough sleep. I was like a rice basket with a rat hole at the bottom, and thus could not be satisfied and overflow, nor could I be filled. I would never know the full depth and breadth of love, beauty, or happiness. She said it like a curse. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning

20 " I read to escape to a more interesting world, not to be locked up in a sweltering prison and find myself vicariously standing among people who are tortured beyond the limits of sanity. "

― Amy Tan , Saving Fish from Drowning