Hsiao Mei Quotes

Soft margins and wide peripheries unfocused, I don't give form to my appreciation, but sit quietly with a quality of blossoms that feels like light. ~ Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

If she doesn't speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn't try, she can lose her chance forever.
-An-mei ~ Amy Tan

Hsiao Lao smiled weakly. "He is a foolish God... Your God does not behave in the way I would expect." I laughed suddenly, for I had thought the same many times -- how foolish God is with me, my sweet, spendthrift, profligate Lord, bestowing on me things I would not have thought myself capable of. "It may seem that way, Hsaso Lao. He is foolish in His giving and in His care for us. He has spoiled me throughout my life. ~ Bo Caldwell

I wasn't expecting a drug dealer to be..classy ~ Amy Mei

I'm Cooper Taylor. I'm a Scorpio. I enjoy women, long walks on the beach, and my roommate says I use girly shampoo. Oh, and I generally hate anyone in the film industry because they're total assholes. Guess you could say I'm you Pai Mei."

"Willow Avery. Actress, Cancer, and according to my team, on my last leg before porn. ~ Emily Snow

Auntie An-mei had cried before she left for China, thinking she would make her brother very rich and happy by communist standards. But when she got home, she cried to me that everyone had a palm out and she was the only one who left with an empty hand. ~ Amy Tan

A felon could plead "benefit of clergy" and be saved by [reading aloud] what was aptly enough termed the "neck verse", which was very usually the Miserere mei of Psalm 51. ~ William Hazlitt

But this...her...she's more than warmth. She's fire, a soul, a name. Mei Yee reverbs through my head, my veins. Lodges like shrapnel in the far reaches of my chest. More powerful than a pound of C-4. Uncontrollable. ~ Ryan Graudin

The world doesn't revolve around you, Drew."
"Well, my world does. ~ Veronica Wolff

The wu in wuxia means both "to cut" and "to stop." It also refers to the weapon - usually a sword - carried by the assassin, the hero of the story. The genre became very popular during the Song Dynasty [960–1279]. These stories often depicted a soldier in revolt, usually against a corrupt political leader. In order to stop corruption and the killing of innocent people, the hero must become an assassin. So wuxia stories are concerned with the premise of ending violence with violence. Although their actions are motivated by political reasons, the hero's journey is epic and transformative - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. In the Tang Dynasty, a prominent poet named Li Bai wrote some verses about an assassin. This is the earliest example I know of wuxia literature. Gradually, the genre gave shape to ideas and stories that had been percolating in historical and mythological spheres. Although these stories were often inspired by real events of the past, to me they feel very contemporary and relevant.

It's one of the oldest genres in Chinese literature, and there are countless wuxia novels today. I began to immerse myself in these novels when I was in elementary school, and they quickly became my favorite things to read. I started with newer books and worked my way back to the earliest writing from the Tang Dynasty. ~ Hou Hsiao-hsien

when life hands you lemons you should take them . . . and whack life by the butt with those damn lemon until its bruised and then go munch on some chocolate ~ Mei

There is a difference between dining and eating. Dining is an art. When you eat to get most out of your meal, to please the palate, just as well as to satiate the appetite, that,my friend, is dining. ~ Yuan Mei

Death is not friendly. It's dark, black where you look at it. You're all alone. But it's no different when you're alive, right? No matter how many relationships we seem to have, we're all alone. - Misaki Mei ~ Yukito Ayatsuji

I drive too fast;
I love too much;
I wish to die every day I live and I live like my wish was to come true.
Ghandi, Ensler, Chanel, and others… What have they got on you but the ability to put into words what you feel. Somewhere deep inside you feel, we all feel, that instinct for carpe diem. It is just that most don't know it until the moment they are about to die...
Carpe diem amici mei, carpe diem iam. ~ B. Farkas

Your life is what you see in front of you.
-An-mei ~ Amy Tan

I won't be what I'm not.
-Jing-mei ~ Amy Tan

Ryan looked almost eye-to-eye with the lifelike statue. The warrior's noble and steady gaze stared back at him. Ryan thought that the way the man's thin moustache curved above his unsmiling mouth made him look like he was hiding a secret. He wore no helmet, but his torso and arms had been intricately chiseled to display fine armour. He was poised to fight.
Ryan, Alex and Hong Mei moved forward, studying each sculpture that they passed. Just like real people, some were tall and slim while others were short and heavy. They wore different uniforms and hairstyles, and on some, Ryan could see remnants of the coloured lacquer that once would have covered them. ~ B.L. Sauder

Everything was burning. Today it was the bodies; tomorrow it would be the spirit. ~ Zhu Xiao-Mei

Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.
-An-mei ~ Amy Tan

The ethos and critique are of poetry, which becomes a rich dark with a phosphorescence of lyric as witness. ~ Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

What is China but a people and their stories? ~ Gene Luen Yang

Apparently some rustlers had been swiping red-horned wildebeest from farms in the San Fedora area and transporting them off-world to other colonies where they would sell them. And these were known repeat offenders. He could make a packet if he got the whole bunch of them the same time. The pickings were kind of slim in Atro City lately and he could use the money. He didn't like feeling like a leech around Cindy-Mei. ~ Christina Engela

How did you get hired?" "I checked the box on the application that said "descendant" by mistake. I'm dyslexic and I thought it said something else."
"Okay," I said, thinking that was the worst employment application mistake ever. "And they all believe him to be the true ruler of Fallen?"
"All the Mei-Bettys do. They're, like, obsessed with it. It's a little like restaurant-of-the-body-snatchers, you know?"
"Then why do you work there?" I asked. "Clearly, you figured out something was wrong with them."
"Duh, but it pays well and they provide room and board. I sorta needed the job and a place to stay. It's got free wifi," she said, as if that explained everything. ~ H.D. Smith

Is there anywhere else to sleep tonight ... Anywhere?' I pleaded.
There's Mei's office, but you'll have to sleep on the floor I'm afraid.' Mei was one of the Ward 9D dietitians.
'I'll sleep on the floor any day. I'm used to it back in the Islands,' I laughed tiredly.
I settled down on the floor. The three rugs I had brought to cushion my back worked surprisingly well. It was almost more comfortable than the thin mats on the cold concrete floors of the fales in Samoa. The idea of sleeping in someone's office was the best idea I had had all year. I decided that I would keep this secret to myself. ~ Ta'afuli Andrew Fiu

We have had drought where I live in New Mexico for several years, and I began to think about rain and green plants and growing. Fairies naturally came to mind when I imagined walking in green places. They are workers for the growth principle. ~ Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Acknowledge diversity and you will achieve unity. (Rabindranath Tagore) ~ Zhu Xiao-Mei

This is my world. Wide and open and waiting. ~ Ryan Graudin

To learn to be without desire
you must desire that.
Better to do as you please:
sing idleness.
Floating clouds, and water idly running --
Where's their source?
In all the vastness of the sea and sky,
you'll never find it. ~ Yuan Mei

Suttree surfaced from these fevered deeps to hear a maudlin voice chant latin by his bedside, what medieval ghost come to usurp his fallen corporeality. An oiled thumball redolent of lime and sage pondered his shuttered lids.
Miserere mei, Deus ...
His ears anointed, his lips ... omnis maligna discordia ... Bechrismed with scented oils he lay boneless in a cold euphoria. Japheth when you left your father's house the birds had flown. You were not prepared for such weathers. You'd spoke too lightly of the winter in your father's heart. We saw you in the streets. Sad. ~ Cormac McCarthy

I think the love between a child and parent is wonderful. You know, Mei ... I haven't seen my mother for over two years. I used to live with her ... but now I live with my father. I used to be sad and wonder why it happened ... but parents have a lot of things they have to deal with too. I saw how they were suffering ... and I know they both love me a lot. You can't let loneliness harden your heart. Mei, you know ... Misuzu loves you, don't you? ~ Bisco Hatori

The search for a proper tempo is not confined to the world of music - one must seek it in life as well ~ Zhu Xiao-Mei

I have reared a memorial more enduring than brass, and loftier than the regal structure of the pyramids, which neither the corroding shower nor the powerless north wind can destroy; no, not even unending years nor the flight of time itself. I shall not entirely die. The greater part of me shall escape oblivion.
[Lat., Exegi monumentum aera perennius
Regalique situ pyramidum altius,
Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
Possit diruere aut innumerabilis
Annorum series et fuga temporum.
Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei
Vitabit Libitinam.] ~ Horace

Montesquieu wrote: "I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve." If one substituted the word music for reading, the exact same dictum applied to me. ~ Zhu Xiao-Mei

You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying.
-An-mei ~ Amy Tan

But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.
-Jing-mei ~ Amy Tan

Sodas use "caramel coloring" to give them that dark, delicious look. Not to be confused with real caramel, caramel color is the single most used food coloring in the world. It is created by heating ammonia and sulfites under high pressure-a process that produces a cancerous substance called 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI). ~ Vani Hari

We all have scars. From loving someone too deeply. From wanting to protect someone too much. ~ Kanae Hazuki

A month alone behind closed doors
forgotten books, remembered, clear again.
Poems come, like water to the pool
Welling,
up and out,
from perfect silence ~ Yuan Mei

Cruor pectoris mei, tutela tua est!
Blood of my heart, protection is thine! ~ Kami Garcia