Ying Ying: Losing him does not matter. It is you who will be found - and cherished.
Rich: So, how'd your mom react when you told her about the wedding?
Waverly Jong: It never came up.
Rich: How come?
Waverly Jong: She'd rather get rectal cancer.
June (Age 9): You want me to be someone I'm not. I'll never be the kind of daughter that you want me to be.
Suyuan: Only two kinds of daughter: obedient or follow-own-mind. Only one kind of daughter could live in this house: obedient kind.
June (Age 9): Then I wish I wasn't your daughter. I wish you weren't my mom.
Suyuan: Too late to change this.
Lindo Jong: This one moment would decide for my whole life whether fear would rule or I would. I decided. Underneath I knew who I was. I promised myself never to forget.
Rose: You're not taking my house, you're not taking my daughter, you're not taking any part of me, because you don't know who I am. I died sixty years ago. I ate opium and I died for my daughter's sake. Now get out of my house.
Waverly Jong: Mom, why don't you like Rich?
Lindo Jong: Is Rich you afraid I not like? If I don't like your Rich, I act polite, say nothing, let him have big cancer, let my daughter be a widow. I like Rich, of course I do. To allow him to marry such a daughter.
Waverly Jong: You don't know, you don't know the power you have over me. One word from you, one look, and I'm four years old again, crying myself to sleep, because nothing I do can ever, ever please you.
Waverly Jong: As is the Chinese cook's custom, my mother always insults her own cooking, but only with the dishes she serves with special pride.
Lindo Jong: This dish not salty enough. No flavor. It's too bad to eat, but please.
Waverly Jong: That was our cue to eat some and proclaim it the best she'd ever made.
An-Mei: It was an old tradition. 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. This is how a daughter honors her mother. The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. This is the most important sacrifice a daughter can make for her mother.
Rose: I didn't say it to impress you.
Ted: That's why it did.
Ying Ying: By then I realised what kind of man I had married... happiest when he was cruel.
Lindo Jong: I could see her face looking at me but not seeing me. She was ashamed, so ashamed to be my daughter.
Waverly Jong: Mom, what's wrong?
Lindo Jong: Nothing, nothing. Only thinking, thinking about my mother, how much I wanted to be like her.
Suyuan: That bad crab, only you tried to take it. Everybody else want best quality. You, your thinking different. Waverly took best-quality crab. You took worst, because you have best-quality heart. You have style no-one can teach. Must be born this way. I see you.
June's Father: She thought: better not die next to my babies. Nobody saves babies with such bad luck. Who wants two babies with ghost mother following them? Very bad luck, very.
Old Chong: How many sharps? How many flats? What key are we in?
Jing-Mei 'June' Woo: Z major.
Old Chong: What?
Jing-Mei 'June' Woo: Z major.
Old Chong: Good.
