Anchee Min Quotes

• If one wants to get a boat ride, one must be near the river.

  Anchee Min

  Opportunity, Rivers, Want

  Anchee Min (2001). “Becoming Madame Mao”, p.21, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  47 Copy quote

• lack of will power leads to more failure than lack of intelligence or ability.

  Anchee Min

  Failure, Will Power, Ability

  17 Copy quote

• If you can't go back to your mother's womb, you'd better learn to be a good fighter.

  Anchee Min

  Mother, Fighting, Fighter

  Anchee Min (2012). “Red Azalea”, p.77, A&C Black

  11 Copy quote

• We were meant to survive because of our minds' ability to reason, our ability to live with frustration in order to maintain our virtue. We wore smiling masks while dying inside.

  Anchee Min

  Frustration, Order, Mind

  Anchee Min (2006). “Empress Orchid”, p.224, Bloomsbury Publishing

  16 Copy quote

• Do you know who Karl Marx is? He is this strange little man, long dead, who lived his narrow little life, and somehow managed by the power of his wayward brain to lay hold upon millions of human lives!

  Anchee Min

  Men, Long, Brain

  8 Copy quote

• My mind swirled with memories of the life I had led. The constant struggle to keep up appearances, the pretenses, the smiles that had been met with tears. The long sleepless nights, the loneliness that cloaked my spirit and turned me into a true ghost.

  Anchee Min

  Memories, Loneliness, Struggle

  Anchee Min (2004). “Empress Orchid”, Wheeler Publishing, Incorporated

  8 Copy quote

• my mother was taught the ch'an concept of happiness, which was to find satisfaction in small things. i was taught to appreciate the fresh air in the morning, the colour of leaves turning red in autumn and the water's smoothness when i soaked my hands in the basin.

  Anchee Min

  Mother, Morning, Autumn

  Anchee Min (2005). “Empress Orchid”, p.4, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• I think about giving up. I almost do.

  Anchee Min

  Giving Up, Thinking, Giving

  Anchee Min (2001). “Becoming Madame Mao”, p.25, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• I was happy not to be in his place. He could command my death, but not his. But then, what kind of power was his? He was a prisoner of himself.

  Anchee Min

  Kind, Prisoner, Command

  7 Copy quote

• My goal was to do anything that would lead to a job. I know that writing would not lead to a job. It's too fancy for me. My biggest goal was to be an office receptionist, answer phones. I didn't expect to go beyond that.

  Anchee Min

  Jobs, Writing, Phones

  "Anchee Min on Her Memoir, 'The Cooked Seed'". Interview with Kevin Nance, www.chicagotribune.com. May 11, 2013.

  14 Copy quote

• The sun doesn't just hang on one family's tree

  Anchee Min

  Good Luck, Tree, Luck

  Anchee Min (2006). “Empress Orchid”, p.22, Bloomsbury Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• When Chinese get together - what's buried stays buried. We don't even discuss our embarrassing early days struggling in Chicago.

  Anchee Min

  Struggle, Chinese, Together

  6 Copy quote

• To be able to do art, it was a luxury to me.

  Anchee Min

  Art, Luxury, Able

  "A 'Cooked Seed' Sprouts After All, In America". Interview with Rachel Martin, www.npr.org. May 12, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• My parents lived likeas the neighbours described thema pair of chopsticks, always in harmony.

  Anchee Min

  Parent, Pairs, Harmony

  1993 Red Azalea.

  12 Copy quote

• The self was a very strange concept to me until I came to America, and my child was born with that entitlement, and that just thrilled me.

  Anchee Min

  Children, Self, America

  "A 'Cooked Seed' Sprouts After All, In America". Interview with Rachel Martin, www.npr.org. May 12, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• There have been 50 or 60 books written about Empress Orchid, but none of them bothered to really examine the period in China when she lived. I was taught that she was evil; it's in all the textbooks.

  Anchee Min

  Book, Orchids, Evil

  11 Copy quote

• No matter how American I become, I'm considered part of the Chinese community by my own family.

  Anchee Min

  Community, Chinese, Matter

  4 Copy quote

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