25 Joy Luck Club Quotes From the New York Times Bestselling Book and Adapted Movie

By Stephanie Kirby

Writer, Entrepreneur and Inspirational quote curator

Published July 4, 2023

Check out these Joy Luck Club quotes to learn more about the bestselling book that inspired a movie.

The Joy Luck Club is a book by author Amy Tan, published in 1989.

The book’s popularity led to a movie of the same name being adapted from the book and released in 1993.

The Joy Luck Club is a novel about four Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco that start a club known as the Joy Luck Club.

The families play the Chinese game of Mahjong, and the book is structured similarly to the game, with four parts divided into four sections, which equal sixteen chapters.

The first section focuses on the Joy Luck Club and how it began with Suyuan Woo, who has since passed away, and her daughter Jing-Mei Woo has taken her place.

The three mothers fill Jing-Mei Woo in on their lives and let her in on a secret that she has two half-sisters that are alive and living in China.

Take a look at these Joy Luck Club quotes to learn more about the popular book.

Joy Luck Club Quotes to Inspire You

Here are some inspirational Joy Luck Club quotes.

1. “I was like the wind.” — Lindo Jong

2. “Your life is what you see in front of you.” — An-Mei

3. “It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.” — Ying Ying St. Clair

4. “But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.” — Jing-Mei

5. “But we were cut off from this type of new thought. You never heard if ideas were better in another city, only if they were worse.” — Lindo Jong

6. “Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother.” — An-Mei

7. ″I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?” — Lindo Jong

8. “The wound begins to close in on itself to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.” — An-Mei

9. “My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s meanings, and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.” — Jing-Mei

10. “Only the most dutiful of daughters would put her own flesh in a soup to save her mother’s life. My mother did this with her whole heart even though my grandmother had disowned her.” — An-Mei

Best Joy Luck Club Quotes

Take a look at some of the best quotes from the bestselling novel.

11. “I like being tragic, Ma. I learned it from you.” — Rose

12. “If she doesn’t try, she can lose her chance forever.” — An-Mei

13. “You have style no one can teach. Must be born this way.” — Suyuan

14. “The aunties are looking at me as if I had become crazy right before their eyes.” — Jing-Mei

15. “But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable.” — Suyuan

16. ″This house was built too steep, and a bad wind from the top blows all your strength back down the hill.” — Ying Ying St. Clair

17. “I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents’ promise. This means nothing to you because to you, promises mean nothing.” — Lindo Jong

Iconic Joy Luck Club Quotes

Enjoy some of the most iconic quotes from The Joy Luck Club.

18. “I was strong. I was pure.” — Lindo Jong

19. “It is my family. It is in our blood.” — Jing-Mei

20. “But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over.” — Rose

21. “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious.” — Jing-Mei

22. “The pain you must forget. This is the most important sacrifice a daughter can make for her mother.” — An-Mei

23. “I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me.” — Lindo Jong

24. “They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds “joy luck” is not a word, it does not exist.” — Jing-Mei

25. “In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English.” — Jing-Mei