The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane Quotes

“No coincidence, no story.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Tea reminds us to slow down and escape the pressures of modern life,” he says”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Maybe our lives are like gigantic jigsaw puzzles. You find the right piece and suddenly the whole picture has meaning.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“It’s said that great sorrow is no more than a reflection of one’s capacity for great joy.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“have forced myself to move forward, but I can never move on.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“A weak man always seeks to hurt those lower than he”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“One mistake can change the course of your life. You can never return to your original path or go back to the person you were.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Suffering has brought clarity into my life. Maybe the things that have happened to me are punishment for what I did in a previous life, maybe they were fate or destiny, and maybe they're all just part of a natural cycle - like the short but spectacular lives of cherry blossoms in spring or leaves falling away in autumn.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“To learn a different language is to learn a different way of living,”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Rice is to nourish,” A-ma says. “Tea is to heal. Always remember that food is medicine, and medicine is food. If you take care of the trees, the trees will take care of you.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Always remember If you don’t love tea, you can’t make good tea.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“You have special abilities,” she goes on. “I don’t mean you are a witch or a fox spirit. And you’ve never seemed drawn to the special gift of healing or magic. Rather, you are like A-ma Mata, who gave birth to the Akha people, who pushed against her restraints, who said, ‘No, I will not accept my bad fate,’ and who endured against all odds with her intelligence, compassion, and perseverance. All that comes from this grove. And the mother tree.” A-ma”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“One day—and it only takes one moment to change your life forever—”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Although I can’t possibly have a single memory of this place. Then, from deep within me, a profound sense of love radiating out to everything around me complemented by reciprocal waves of love coming at me, enveloping me. All”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Every passing moment is the passing of life; every moment of life is life itself.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“What better place to look for trash than in America - the land of consumption and waste?”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“When she reaches the ground, she looks from the old woman to me. A moment of confusion. Then recognition. I know her too, because I've seen traces of her in my face in the mirror. My mother. My a-ma.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“If you work hard, you will eat easy. If you work easy, you will eat hard.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Every pandemic in the history of the world has come from China.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“Opium and heroin had not caused our poverty and hopelessness. Rather, poverty and hopelessness had brought about an unquenchable desire to forget. After”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“As A-ma said, every story, every dream, every waking minute of our lives is filled with one fateful coincidence after another.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“What husband wants a wife who thinks she’s smarter than he is?”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“But why bother trying to turn a monkey into a goat?”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“huigan—causes us to turn inward and reflect as the liquor coats our tongues, shimmers down our throats, and then rises again as fragrance. The Daoists see tea as a way to regulate internal alchemy, be in harmony with the natural world, and serve as an ingredient in the elixir of immortality. Together, these three”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“They say nothing to me in a very loud way.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“a traditional Cantonese gift: a tin of imported Danish cookies.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“The machete has been tested, and the rice already cooked.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“It’s a Sun and Moon truth that if a husband sees his wife give birth, he might die from it.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“You’ll never get a marriage proposal if you have to rely on your needlework.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

“It's said that great sorrow is no more than a reflection of one's capacity for great joy. I see it from the opposite direction. I'm happy, but there's an empty space inside me that will never stop suffering from the loss of Yan-yeh.”
― Lisa See, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane