The Leftover Woman Quotes

“No one knew better than I, that while your mind might disappear, the body must endure.”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

“Why was it that women had to pay the price for men’s desires?”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

“Always know your own weaknesses,” her father told her. “Know them better than your worst enemy and no one will be able to pull the wool over your eyes.”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

“Being born with beauty or talent or wealth, that’s pure dumb luck,” he said once. “What you do with it, that’s what distinguishes a great man.”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

“Fortunately, it was easy to be invisible around Rebecca. She never truly looked at me anyway. She was smart enough to be aware of her privilege, in theory at least, but in practice, she was as blind as anyone else. I wasn’t one of them, even if I wanted to be. In English, I was a different person, stuttering, slow, and clumsy. Inarticulate, seemingly unintelligent. Rebecca, for whom appearances meant so much, wasn’t able to see past any of that to the woman I was in Chinese. She didn’t realize that I could understand so much more than I could express in her language. My features were as impenetrable as a mirror, reflecting back only what she expected to see with her white gaze.”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

“In China, I’d seen posters warning girls of the danger of becoming leftover women, women that no one wanted. Leftover like scraps on a table, uneaten food, both a sacrilege and wasteful, something that should have nourished our country squandered and turned into rubbish: unwanted, purposeless, of no use to anyone. I was a leftover woman, I realized. After everyone else had carved away what they wanted to see in me and taken what they desired, I was all that was left.”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

“She thinks about Lucy, this woman, who was invisible to her then appeared to be her enemy. Rebecca has never truly seen her because she didn’t bother to look. Plus, there were so many things she also chose not to notice in her own daughter whom she sometimes used to impress others.”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

“It's the effect of the uncanny valley " Brandon replied. "You know, the unsettling place inhabited by dolls and robots. It's been proven that humans react positively to humanoid figures until said figures become too human. At that point, the little differences - like the inability to make appropriate eye contact of unusual speech patterns - create feelings of discomfort and disgust, sometimes even leading to terror.”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

“It's the effect of the uncanny Valley " Brandon replied. "You know, the unsettling place inhabited by dolls and robots. It's been proven that humans react positively to humanoid figures until said figures become too human. At that point, the little differences - like the inability to make appropriate eye contact of unusual speech patterns - create feelings of discomfort and disgust, sometimes even leading to terror.”
― Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman