The Piano Teacher Quotes

“And in the end, I think, we're all just trying to survive, aren't we?”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“Was there anything more intimate than being truly seen?”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“That's the beginning of how it all changes. We become survivors or not.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“And a simple knowledge is what sustains her through all of this: that all she needs to do is step out on to that street and she will dissolve into it, be absorbed in its rhythms and become, easily, a part of the world.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“Every day leaflets fall from the sky, Japanese planes whirring overhead and letting loose propaganda, all over the colony, telling the Chinese and the Indians not to fight, to join with the Japanese in a “Greater Far Eastern Co-Prosperity Sphere.” They’ve been collecting them as they fall on the ground, stacking them in piles, and Trudy wakes up on Christmas Day and declares a project, to make wallpaper out of them. In their dressing gowns, they put on Christmas carols, make hot toddies, and—in a fit of wild, Yuletide indulgence—use all the flour for pancakes, and paste the leaflets on the living room wall—a grimly ironic decoration. One has a drawing of a Chinese woman sitting on the lap of a fat Englishman, and says the English have been raping your women for years, stop it now, or something to that effect, in Chinese, or so Trudy says.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“What else is there to think about mate? Times like these, you get to the basics - what you eat, where you shit, finding a place to sleep. It's what keeps you sane.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“I forgive you, she says. I understand.
He clings to this. Hears her say it over and over.
How can he leave her now?”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“It is easier to brand her a villain and go back to camp, play the victim, lick his wounds. This is what he does. There is no glory in it, but there is survival. And, he realizes, that is what they are playing at now.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“What is making him uneasy is his own unwillingness to compromise and where it might be coming from - the niggling feeling that he cannot shake off: that he is calling his reluctance integrity, but what it might be is simply cowardice.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“People have always expected me to be bad and thoughtless and shallow, and I do my best to accommodate their expectations. I sink to their expectations, one might say. I think its the ultimate suggestibility of most of us. We are social beings. We live in a social world with other people and so we wish to be as they see us, even if it is detrimental to ourselves.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“Angeline says that we’re not doing very well. Apparently they expected the Japs from the south, by the sea, but they came from the north instead and just breezed right through the defenses there. And it’s really awful outside.” Her voice hiccups. “I saw a dead baby on a pile of rubbish this morning as I came here. It’s all around, the rubbish and the corpses, I mean, and they’re burning it so it smells like what I imagine hell smells like. And I saw a woman being beaten with bamboo poles and then dragged off by her hair. She was half being dragged, half crawling along, and screaming like the end of the world. Her skin was coming off in ribbons. You’re supposed to wear sanitary pads so that . . . you know . . . if a soldier tries to . . . Well, you know. The locals and the Japanese both are looting anything that’s not locked down, and thieving and generally being impossible. They’re all over the place in Kowloon, running amok. We’re thinking about moving out to one of the hotels, just so we’re more in the middle of things, and we can see people and get more information. The Gloucester is packed to the rafters but my old friend Delia Ho has a room at the Repulse Bay and says we can have it because she’s leaving to go to China. We can share the room with Angeline, don’t you think? And apparently, the American Club has cots out and people are staying there as well. They have a lot of supplies, I suppose. Americans always do. Everyone wants to be around other people.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“Angeline, you could go with Will and Ned, since Frederick is English. You’re counted as English, then. You have your marriage certificate somewhere, don’t you? I’ll be fine out here without you. So many family friends have offered to take me in, I won’t be alone.” Trudy strokes her friend’s arm.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“Victor and Melody Chen lived in the Mid-Levels, in an enormous white two-story house on May Road. There was a driveway, with potted plants lining the sides. Inside, there was the quiet, efficient buzz of a household staffed with plentiful servants. Claire had taken a bus, and when she arrived, she was perspiring after the walk from the road to the house. The amah had led her to a sitting room, where she found a fan blowing blessedly cool air. A houseboy adjusted the drapes so that she was properly shaded. Her blue linen skirt, just delivered from the tailor, was wrinkled, and she had on a white voile blouse that was splotched with moisture. She hoped the Chens would allow her some time to compose herself. She shifted, feeling a drop of perspiration trickle down her thigh.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“Will muddles his way through the club and into the upper tier, where the boxes are filled with chattering people in jackets and silky dresses. He comes through the door of number 28 and Trudy spies him right away, pounces on him, and introduces him to everybody. There are Chinese from Peru, Polish by way of Tokyo, a Frenchman married to Russian royalty. English is spoken.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“They gather their belongings and pick their way in the gathering dusk through the streets. Refuse has started to build up on the curbs and a low, persistent stench rises from the road. They see a car speed up as it approaches them, and in it a Chinese man averting his gaze. They are in sight of the lorry and Will remarks that the doors are open when they hear it. Evers’s head cocks up to the whining sound, and Will watches him watch the first bomb come down and destroy a building not fifty feet away. It is as if it is in slow motion. Evers yells, “Watch out!” and dives for the ground.”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher

“Wasn't love always some form of narcissism anyway?”
― Janice Y.K. Lee, The Piano Teacher