Shan Sa Quotes

I hand the cage to him and he takes it firmly in his arms.
'Your hankie smells nice,' he says, almost in a whisper.

It has taken many years for the game of go to initiate me into the freedom of slipping between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. From one stone to the next, from black to white, the thousands of stones have ended up building a bridge far into the infinite expanse of China.

Love has been buried forever under the leaves at my feet. I lie down on the ground and rest my head on my bag. The grass tickles my arms where I bend the stalks under my neck.
I want to sleep.

Life is an infernal loop where the day before yesterday has merged with today, and yesterday has been jettisoned. We think we are moving forward in time, but we are always prisoners of the past.

I talk to trees and animals. We have interesting conversations about food, weather, and love. They sometimes can predict the future.

Out on the street I start to run; I need to breathe in this life, the trees, the warmth of my town. I will be able to control my own fate and I will know how to be happy. Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle ...

Every man has to die. Choosing oblivion is the only way of triumphing over this.

I have witnessed the strength of our people driven from their own land. The tenacious march south is like a silent protest against death. In this tidal wave of men and woman a hatred mingles with hope. And this furious force of will that has infected me too will carry me to the very end of my own lonely progress.

The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.

I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.

I must go live at the ends of the earth and have my child there while I wait for Min and Jing to be freed.
That happy day will come: two men making their way towards a little cottage lost in the open countryside.
The door opens ...

In our time women can demonstrate prowess in a thousand ways. Long ago the great Princess Sun of Ping fought for her father, the August Sovereign. At her funeral, His Majesty called for the trumpets and drums to be sounded, an honor reserved for men. My dear, from this day you must dress her as a boy. Give her an education worthy of her own determination.

I splash my head with ice-cold water and turn to face the mirror. When my image appears I instinctively look away.
Is there a truth on the other side that we do not want to see?

Heroes are damned. No mortal conquers Death.

In the closed world of the gynaeceum, despite the gardens and parkland extending beyong the horizon, despite the insurmountable walls separating pavillions and palaces, the tangled web of our fate was inescapable. Why did these women love each other to the point of madness? Why did they loathe one another so vehemently, and why did sworn enemies feel such horror and fascination for one another? Why should furious hate become obsession, then intoxication and the very reason to live?
Because love and hate were the two heads of the demon.

I am like them-I want life. I want to go back to Manchuria, to find my house and my go table. I will return to the Square of a Thousand Winds and wait for my Stranger. I know he will come ... one afternoon ... as he did that first time.

Men's strengths go hand in hand with their weaknesses. That is why there is no such thing as an invincible warrior, and why heroes die.

would you dare to love me?

The trees part before her slender form and close in again behind me. The roads weave a vast labyrinth, and I am lost.

To other women the choice of clothes was a form of ingenious exhibition, a shameless seduction. To me, dresses were like a breastplate that I put on to set off to war against this life.

She died a few days later, and her death buried once and for all the intrigues between the Precious Wife, the Gracious Wife, and all the Imperial favorites. Rivalries and alliances, loathing and attraction had been dissolved. Their existence had been a pointless tragedy, just as the talent of one prodigious poetess had been.

Politicians are better liars than writers.

I try very hard to keep my eyes open so that I can look at my beloved.

My position at the Palace is our one opportunity. Have confidence in my destiny. Do not weep.

I have been brought up in a world dominated by honor. I have known neither crime, poverty, nor betrayal, and here I taste hatred for the first time: it is sublime, like a thirst for justice and revenge.
-the girl who played go

Inside its crumbling walls the house is riddled with bullet holes, and in its garden only the crimson dahlias still hold their heads high. Jing is lying on a chaise longue [sic] playing with his bird.
'I thought you were in prison.'
He looks up, his eyes filled with hate and desire.
'You are my prison.

I have written too much about lives - I feel I have lived for too long.

I reply with a letter as brief as his: 'My brother, after my first battle the only thing I now worship is the sun, a star that represents death's constancy. Beware of the moon, which reflects our world of beauty. It waxes and wanes, it is treacherous and ephemeral. We will all die some day ...

Today I finally recognise the mistake that almost became my downfall: I expected too much out of life. I thought it would owe me happiness and cheerfulness. In fact, life offers neither good nor evil. Happiness is a fruit you cultivate and harvest inside your soul. You can not gain it from the outside. Why should I be fretful like a child that has got no gift? I have years ahead to be happy.

The world in which we live is no more real than a moon beam reflected in water drawn from the palm of the hand ...

The role of Empress became a full-time occupation.

Years have passed and how I am anxiously watching the twilight of my childhood, quietly sinking, never to rise again.

A man who does not like power will suffer from its cruelty.

The winter light, tinted by the bright colors in the street, plays on the go-board. All these festivities cut me off from the rest of the world. My loneliness is like a bolt of crimson silk stowed in the bottom of a wooden chest.