Yen Mah Quotes

Please believe that one single positive dream is more important than a thousand negative realities.

I read because I have to. It drives everything else from my mind. It lets me escape to find other world.

But you can vanquish the demons only when you yourself are convinced of your own worth.

Transcend your abuse and transform it into a source of courage, creativity and compassion.

Never get involved. That's my motto. I hurt no one. And no one can hurt me.

Though life has to be lived forward, it can only be understood backwards

Revenge is not worthy of you. If you concentrate on revenge, you will keep those wounds fresh that would otherwise have healed.

Don't trust anyone. Be a cold fish. I hurt no one. And no one can hurt me.

keep in mind that whenever you are in a crisis, you are in the midst of danger as well as oportunity.

The future belongs to you. Should anyone insult you, tell yourself this: I am a child of destiny who will unite East and West and change the world.

People with yuan fen are destined to like one another; Friendship develops even if a thousand miles apart. But should yuan fen be absent between two individuals, They will remain strangers despite sitting face-to-face

You may be right in believing that if you study hard, one day you might become fluent in English. But you will still look Chinese, and when people meet you, they’ll see a Chinese girl no matter how well you speak English. You’ll always be expected to know Chinese, and if you don’t, I’m afraid they will not respect you as much.

At the age of three my grand aunt proclaimed her independence by categorically refusing to have her feet bound, resolutely tearing off the bandages as fast as they were applied.

Suen Le! (it means, "Let it be.

No matter what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take away your knowledge.

You have your whole life ahead of you. Be smart. Study hard and be independent. I'm afraid the chances of your getting a dowry are slim. You must rely on yourself. No matter what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take away your knowledge. The world is changing. You must make your own life outside this home.

Create your own destiny!

Day after day, anxiety spun its web around my thoughts and spread to all corners of my heart.

You can vanquish the demons only when you yourself are convinced of your own worth.

That’s exactly what I’ll do, I thought to myself. After dinner, I’m going to ask Big Brother to teach me how to read this map. With Aunt Baba still in Tianjin, there’s obviously nobody looking out for me. I’ll just have to find my own way.

Remember, the best cure for worry is to do something positive. That’s because fear is endless and formless, whereas even the worst outcome has an ending.

Keep in mind that whenever you are in a crisis, you are in the midst of danger as well as opportunity.

The way I see it, the nineteenth century was a British century. The twenthieth century is an American century. I predict that the twenty-first century will be a Chinese century. The pendulum of history will swing from the ying ashes brought by the Cultural Revolution to the yang pheonix arising from its wreckage. Aunt Baba, pg 226. Year 1979

I often think of life as a deposit of time. We are each allocated so many years, just like a fixed sum in a bank. When twenty-four hours have passed I have spent one more day. I read in the People's Daily that the average life expectancy for a Chinese woman is seventy-two. I am already seventy-four years old. I spent all my deposits two years ago and am on bonus time. Every day is already a gift. What is there to complain of?

I knew that I was the least-loved child because I was a girl and because my mother had died giving birth to me.

Mother Teresa once said, "Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted are the greatest poverty." To this I will add: Please believe that one single positive dream is more important than a thousand negative realities.

quickly pretended disappointment. We hailed a taxi and squeezed in with all our luggage. Aunt Reine

She was bedridden falling a fall which broke her hip. X-rays showed that she had cancer of the colon which had already spreed. To my surprise I found her cheerful and free of pain, perhaps because of the small doses of morphine she was being given. She was surrounded by neighbours and friends who congregated at her bedside day and night. In this cosy, noisy, gregarious world of the "all-chinese" sickbed, so different from the stark, sterile solitude of the American hospital room, her life had assumed the astounding quality of a continuous farewell party.

First, you must believe that you can do anything you set your mind to. Remember the old adage: genius is ten percent inspiration, ninety percent perspiration.

I read because I have to. It drives everything else from my mind. It lets me escape to find other worlds.

I ran over without a word, cradled PLT tenderly in my arms and carried her upstairs. Placing her on my own bed, I wrapped my mortally wounded pet in my best school scarf and lay down next to her. It was a night of grief I have never forgotten.

To celebrate his prosperity, fellow employees and friends urged him to take a young concubine to "serve him". Even Ye Ye's boss, the London-educated K. C. Li, jokingly volunteered to "give" him a couple of girls with his bonus. Ye Ye reported all this in a matter-of-fact way in a letter to his wife, adding touchingly that he was a "one-woman man".

Alcenith Crawford (a divorced ophthalmologist): "We women doctors have un-happy marriages because in our minds we are the superstars of our families. Having survived the hardship of medical school we expect to reap our rewards at home. We had to assert ourselves against all odds and when we finally graduate there are few shrinking violets amongst us. It takes a special man to be able to cope. Men like to feel important and be the undisputed head of the family. A man does not enjoy waiting for his wife while she performs life-saving operations. He expects her and their children to revolve around his needs, not the other way. But we have become accustomed to giving orders in hospitals and having them obeyed. Once home, it's difficult to adjust. Moreover, we often earn more than our husbands. It takes a generous and exceptional man to forgive all that.

Once he wrote the character 忍 (endure). He instructed Aunt Baba to study the word. ‘Divide 忍 (endure) into its two components, top and bottom. The top component, 刀 means knife, but it has a sheath in the centre of the rapier 刃. The bottom component 心 means heart. Combined together, the world is telling us a story. Though my son is wounding my heart, I shall ensheath the pain and live through it. To me, the word 忍 (endure) represents the epitome of the Chinese culture and civilization.

At the end of his speech, we clapped politely. He then asked if there were any questions. There was a pause. “Surely,” he coaxed, “one of you young ladies must be curious about something!” He took another drag on his cigarette. We stared at the tendrils of smoke coming out of his nose. Finally, after another embarassing lull, Wu Chun-mei raised her hand. “Now, here is a brave young girl!” he exclaimed. “What is your question, my dear?” “I hope you don’t mind,” Wu Chun-mei asked in her flawless English. “But can you make the smoke come out of your ears too?

In the early 1970s, racial and gender discrimination was still prevalent. The easy camaraderie prevailing in the operating room evaporated at the completion of surgical procedures. There was an unspoken pecking order of seating arrangements at lunch among my fellow physicians. At the top were the white male 'primary producers' in prestigious surgical specialties. They were followed by the internists. Next came the general practitioners. Last on the list were the hospital-based physicians: the radiologists, pathologists and anaesthesiologists - especially non-white, female ones like me. Apart from colour, we were shunned because we did not bring in patients ourselves but, like vultures, lived off the patients generated by other doctors. We were also resented because being hospital-based and not having to rent office space or hire nursing staff, we had low overheads. Since a physician's number of admissions to the hospital and referral pattern determined the degree of attention and regard accorded by colleagues, it was safe for our peers to ignore us and target those in position to send over income-producing referrals. This attitude was mirrored from the board of directors all the way down to the orderlies.

But if I tried to be really good and studied very very hard, perhaps things would become different one day, I would think. Meanwhile, I must not tell anyone how bad it really was.

çün­kü kuş­lar, ya­şa­mak için, in­san­lar gi­bi bir­ta­kım aşa­ğı­lık iş­ler­le uğ­raş­ma­ya mah­kûm edil­me­miş­ler. elbi­se gi­yen, dün­ya­da otu­ran, ça­lış­ma­sı, pa­ra kazanma­sı ge­re­ken, ha­vay­la, suy­la ya­şa­ya­ma­yan mah­lûk­lar için aşk, faz­la gü­zel bir şey. konu­şan hayvanlar için bu bi­raz faz­la.

Okuyorum. Çünkü buna mecburum. Kafamda her şeyi alıp götürüyor. Kaçıp başka dünyaları keşfetmemi sağlıyor. Kitaplarımdaki insanlar başkalarından daha gerçek. Her şeyi unutturuyorlar.

Though life has to be lived forward, it can only be understood backward.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.

Though you have a fine mind and a subtle intellect, the sentiments you express not only expose your ignorance, they also wound my heart.