Saving Fish from Drowning Quotes

“I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“From what I have observed, when the anesthesia of love wears off, there is always the pain of consequences. You don't have to be stupid to marry the wrong man.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“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

“Was there ever a true great love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections? I honestly don't think so. In part, this was my fault. It was my nature, I suppose. I could not let myself be that unmindful. Isn't that what love is-losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's fault, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he's beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally-that's the worst I think, deficient morals.

I always minded. I was always cautious of what could go wrong, what was already "not ideal". I paid attention to divorce rates. I ask you this: What's the chance of finding a lasting marriage? Twenty percent? Ten? Did I know any woman who escaped having her heart crushed like a recyclable can? Not a one. From what I have observed, when the anesthesia of love wears off, there is always the pain of consequences. You don't have to be stupid to marry the wrong man.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“With hope, a mind is always free.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“I have loved works of fiction precisely for their illusions, for the author's sleight-of-hand in showing me the magic, what appeared in the right hand but not in the left...”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“...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

“You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally--that's the worst, I think, deficient morals. (Saving Fish From Drowning)”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“...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

“...A painting was a translation of the language of my heart.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“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

“I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I had placed them.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“A good government had to guide its people, sometimes gently, sometimes strictly, just as parents did. It could allow certain freedoms, but in a style that suited the country.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“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

“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

“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

“When the anesthesia of love wears off,
you suffer the pain of consequence.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“Was there ever a great true love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections?...I could not let myself become that unmindful. Isn't that what love is - losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally - that's the worst, I think, deficient morals.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“But in art, lovely subversive art, you see what breaks through in spite of restraint, or even because of it. Art despises placidity and smooth surfaces. Without art, I would have drowned under still waters.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“But we’re already uncomfortable,” Dwight retorted. “And we are at risk! Don’t you realize where we are? We’re in the fucking jungle. We already had malaria. What’s next? Snakebite? Typhus? When do we factor us into the equation for what we do?”

He had brought up their unspoken worries and a series of morally ugly questions. Whom do you save? Can you save both? Or do you save only yourself? Do you do nothing and risk nothing, or die from whatever happens to come along as you sit on a log waiting for whatever comes?

They agitated over the questions in private thought, wishing to forget morals and just be out of this place. Who else had discarded morals and saved themselves? Could they live with themselves later? If they put away the concerns of the Lajamee, how soon would they push aside one another’s welfare? At what point do people resort to “every man for himself”?”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“Through trial with death, you discover your power. Through trial, you shed your mortal flesh, layer after layer, until you become who you are supposed to be.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“I was appalled at the idea. Evaporate? Would that happen to me? I wanted to expand, to fill the void, to reclaim all that I had wasted. I wanted to fill the silence with all the words I had not yet spoken.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“The gnarled pine, I would have said, touch it. This is China. Horticulturalists around the world have come to study it. Yet no one has ever been able to explain why it grows like a corkscrew, just as no one can adequately explain China. But like that tree, there it is, old, resilient, and oddly magnificent. Within that tree are the elements in nature that have inspired Chinese artists for centuries: gesture over geometry, subtlety over symmetry, constant flow over static form.
And the temples, walk and touch them. This is China. Don't merely stare at these murals and statues. Fly up to the crossbeams, get down on your hands and knees, and press your head to the floor tiles. Hide behind that pillar and come eye to eye with its flecks of paint. Imagine that you are the interior decorator who is a thousand years in age. Start with a bit of Tibetan Buddhism, plus a dash each of animism and Taoism. A hodgepodge, you say? No, what is in those temples is an amalgam that is pure Chinese, a lovely shabby elegance, a glorious new motley that makes China infinitely intriguing. Nothing is ever completely thrown away and replaced. If one period of influence falls out of favor, it is patched over. The old views still exist, one chipped layer beneath, ready to pop through with the slightest abrasion.
That is the Chinese aesthetic and also its spirit. Those are the traces that have affected all who have traveled along China's roads.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“I realized then that we miss so much of life while we are part of it. We fail to see ninety percent of the glories of nature, for to do so would require vision that is simultaneously telescopic and microscopic.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“Never show a weapon before you have to use it”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“Sólo recuerdas lo que quieres recordar. Sólo sabes lo que tu corazón te permite saber.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

“But why didn’t I flood in the same way? Why was their happiness tenfold what I felt? Did I lack the proper connection between the senses and the heart? And then I realized that this was my habit. To hold back my feelings.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning