Jin Quotes

You're right." He cut me off. "I never understood this country. I never understood why he chose to leave everything else behind and stay for this. Not until I met you."
I felt like he'd pushed me, like I was falling and I needed him to reel those words back in to keep me standing straight.
"You /are/ this country, Amani." He spoke more quietly now. "More alive than anything ought to be in this place. All fire and gunpowder, with one finger always on the trigger. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

But most good writers are Don Quixote at heart, and unreasonableness is often a condition of art. ~ Ha Jin

A woman's lot is to suffer. ~ Min Jin Lee

You're wrong, you know. I'm not with you because of who you became. I fell in love with you when I was bleeding under a counter at the dead end of the desert and you saved my life. Back when we were both who we used to be. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

A true master will not deceive an able disciple. You are hampered by the limits you set and no limit can be set on skill. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

All landowners who were foolish enough to stick around were shot. Communists see people only in simple categories. ~ Min Jin Lee

I was told many times that my writing was either too Korean - or not Korean enough. ~ Min Jin Lee

Living everyday in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage ~ Min Jin Lee

Yet although Sony believed that the transition from CRTs to flat panels was inevitable, it did not invest in production facilities for PDPs or LCDs because it believed such an investment was strategically unwise. In other words, it was a deliberate strategic choice - not a legacy problem - not to invest in flat panel displays. ~ Sea-Jin Chang

In this world, lies go over better than the truth more often than not. Lies set your mind at unease, but your body at ease. ~ Eun-Jin Jang

He sat down in a corner and ordered half a pound of dumplings, which came in a white bowl with a blue rim. While he was eating, his memory was further revived and sharpened by the familiar taste of the stuffing, made of pork, leeks, cabbage, dried shrimp, ginger, sesame oil. Every bit of the memory became unmistakable now. ~ Ha Jin

Even if there were hundred bad Japanese, if there was one good one, he refused to make a blanket statement ~ Min Jin Lee

„The Prophet had a universal soul. He had an oceanic soul. One that embraced all other Souls and our masters in our tradition talk about that. They talk about the magnanimity of the Prophet. The great souledness of our Prophet. That meant that he had the ability to relate to every single human being: as they are, where they are, to feel and suffer with them if they had harm and to feel joy with them if they had good and to be intent on their well-being in all things that they did. This is an incredible capacity. And as we grow spiritually this must be one of the gauges by which growth is measured. You are able to embrace people as a whole, not just your own group, not just your own family, not just your own country, but to embrace all people. And not just the good ones but also the bad ones as well. The more that we grow spiritually, the greater this quality becomes. That's why the community that embodies that becomes a mercy to the worlds like the Prophet himself. Then that community is a mercy for everyone around it. For the trees, for the animals, for all the people no matter who they are. For the homeless, for the down-and-out, for the people that have nothing. This is the way the community got to be. It's got to be a community with open arms, a community that is here to serve and to love. That's the way the Prophet was, isn't it? The Prophet who is the greatest thing that God created in creation, the greatest of all the human beings, of all the Jin, greater than all the ~ Dr. Umar Faruq Abd Allah

Those who greatly enlighten delusion are buddhas; those who are greatly deluded about enlightenment are sentient beings. ~ Kim Hee-jin

No walking! No standing, no bending, no moving, no accessing the Shadow Roads, nothing. You don't swim for an hour after eating, you don't swan around like an idiot for an hour after narrowly avoiding death.'
'Toby does,' said Quentin.
'Toby is genetically predisposed to swan around like an idiot,' Jin shot back. 'Now sit. ~ Seanan McGuire

To witness is to make the truth known, but we must remember that most victims have no voice of their own, and that in bearing witness to their stories we must not appropriate them. ~ Ha Jin

Without answering, he pulled the comforter over his head. If only he could sleep a few days in a row. He felt sorry for himself and sick of everything. ~ Ha Jin

Nobody would say the cowshed was heaven and nobody would say the inhuman torture of so many victims be called a revolution of the proletariat ... A museum should be established to remind China of the follies and disasters that had fallen from 1966 to 1976. We cannot forget what had happened and history should not repeat itself. ~ Ba Jin

Jin Quan laughed. Samantha laughed too trying to find her lost dignity ~ Cyci Cade

On our way down, we passed a two-story villa, hidden in a thicket of Chinese parasol trees, magnolia, and pines. It looked almost like a random pile of stones against the background of the rocks. It struck me as an unusually lovely place, and I snapped my last shot. Suddenly a man materialized out of nowhere and asked me in a low but commanding voice to hand over my camera. He wore civilian clothes, but I noticed he had a pistol. He opened the camera and exposed my entire roll of film. Then he disappeared, as if into the earth. Some tourists standing next to me whispered that this was one of Mao's summer villas. I felt another pang of revulsion toward Mao, not so much for his privilege, but for the hypocrisy of allowing himself luxury while telling his people that even comfort was bad for them. After we were safely out of earshot of the invisible guard, and I was bemoaning the loss of my thirty-six pictures, Jin-ming gave me a grin: "See where goggling at holy places gets you!"

We left Lushan by bus. Like every bus in China, it was packed, and we had to crane our necks desperately trying to breathe. Virtually no new buses had been built since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, during which time the urban population had increased by several tens of millions. After a few minutes, we suddenly stopped. The front door was forced open, and an authoritative-looking man in plainclothes squeezed in.

"Get down! Get down!" he barked.

"Some Amer ~ Jung Chang

A richly detailed, poignant, and utterly fascinating look into another culture and how it is cross-pollinated by our own. It brings to mind the work of Ha Jin in its power and revelation of the new. ~ T.C. Boyle

Your thoughts are transparent. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

With all my heart I beseech and beg my two hundred million female compatriots to assume their responsibility as citizens. Arise! Arise! Chinese women, arise! ~ Qiu Jin

In 1969 my parents, my sister, my brother Jin-ming, and I were expelled from Chengdu one after another, and sent to distant parts of the Sichuan wilderness. We were among millions of urban dwellers to be exiled to the countryside.

In this way, young people would not be roaming the cities with nothing to do, creating trouble out of sheer boredom, and adults like my parents would have a 'future." They were part of the old administration which had been replaced by Mao's Revolutionary Committees, and packing them off to the sticks to do hard labor was a convenient solution.

According to Mao's rhetoric, we were sent to the countryside 'to be reformed." Mao advocated 'thought reform through labor' for everyone, but never explained the relationship between the two. Of course, no one asked for clarification. Merely to contemplate such a question was tantamount to treason. In reality, everyone in China knew that hard labor, particularly in the countryside, was always punishment. It was noticeable that none of Mao's henchmen, the members of the newly established Revolutionary Committees, army officers and very few of their children had to do it.

The first of us to be expelled was my father. Just after New Year 1969 he was sent to Miyi County in the region of Xichang, on the eastern edge of the Himalayas, an area so remote that it is China's satellite launch base today. It lies about 300 miles from Chengdu, four days' journey by truck, as there was no ~ Jung Chang

There was more to being something than just blood. ~ Min Jin Lee

People are just the same. They like me if they need me, but once I'm useless, they abandon me. To survive, I need to be useful ~ Kim Do-Jin

Verily, there is no dishonor in death at the hands of a far superior enemy. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Separation on the River Kiang KO-JIN goes west from Ko-kaku-ro, The smoke-flowers are blurred over the river. His lone sail blots the far sky. And now I see only the river, The long Kiang, reaching heaven. Taking ~ Ezra Pound

...a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn't be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet. ~ Min Jin Lee

I have spent myself on all kinds of things ... I have advanced much politically but I have written little and moreover have written it badly. ~ Ba Jin

Share your blessings and your hardships too will be shared. ~ Jin Yong

If there are questions that are unanswered by research, they will be answered by a strategy division, a data-mining group or someone else within the organization. We need to be more effective at collaborating with these groups. ~ Stephen Jin-Woo Kim

Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future. ~ Ba Jin

After losing four of his children and his wife to cholera five years ago, Shin found that he could not speak much about loss. Everything a person said sounded glib and foolish. ~ Min Jin Lee

Media work needs ideals. Maybe thirty years from now, after I retire, I'll see the media mature and make the transition from political party, interest group, and corporate to truly public. But over the next ten years, the encroachment of commercialism and worldliness will loom much larger than the democratization we imagine. -Jin Yongquan in China Ink ~ Judy Polumbaum

From the moment she'd met him, she'd felt his presence all around her. ~ Min Jin Lee

Mongkol, poor Mongkol, shedding tears.

Thinking of his smiling, comical face, and his dreams of sending his son to university, I could only lower my head in silence.

And the night continued, cold and dark, the wind frozen beyond the mountains. ~ You Jin

English has more flexibility. It's a very plastic, very shapeable, very expressive language. In that sense it feels quite natural. ~ Ha Jin

I didn't make you come here." Jin's eyes bored into mine, but I wasn't backing down. He said I had traitor eyes. Let him see the betrayal there. Let him drown in it. "I didn't trick you and I didn't ask you to. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

In Seoul, people like me get called Japanese bastards, and in Japan, I'm just another dirty Korean no matter how much money I make or how nice I am. So what the fuck? ~ Min Jin Lee

Enlightenment after all is to overcome delusion, by way of sensitizing practitioners to complexities and problems of the human situation. ~ Kim Hee-jin

What else was I meant to do? Leave you to die?"
"You might've."
"I wouldn't have. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

It's not that you don't understand, it's that you don't like it. ~ Min Jin Lee

Here's a tip for you." He was close to me now, close as he had been when he kissed me, or when I kissed him. "Don't try to hit a man in the face when he's looking straight into your eyes. You've got traitor eyes, Bandit."

I drove my other fist into his gut hard enough that my knuckles popped. Jin doubled over, coughing. "Thanks for the tip. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

It was possible that he was in love with the way she wrote the number two - her parallel lines expressing a kind of free movement inside the invisible box that contained the ideograph's strokes. ~ Min Jin Lee

I am a person always full of contradictions ... It was hard to choose whether to devote myself to revolution as a soldier or as a writer. ~ Ba Jin

Fear sees, even when eyes are closed. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

There was once an abbot who had spent thirty-nine years alone in the temple with cats as his only companions. As someone who believed that faith and willpower could conquer any difficulty, the abbot began training newborn kittens, trying to turn the impossible into the possible. First he put the rattan hoop on the ground for the kittens to crawl through. Then he slowly raised the hoop little by little, day after day, month after month, and year after year. Years went by and the hoop was gradually raised until he finally succeeded in getting the cats to jump through the hoop. An unusual phenomenon occurred. When the kittens saw the older cats jump, they believed they could do it too and so, without much effort, they learned to jump easily through the hoop as well. ~ You Jin

To try is to accept the possibility of failure. Simply do. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Our textbooks were ridiculous propaganda. The first English sentence we learned was "Long live Chairman Mao!" But no one dared to explain the sentence grammatically. In Chinese the term for the optative mood, expressing a wish or desire, means 'something unreal." In 1966 a lecturer at Sichuan University had been beaten up for 'having the audacity to suggest that "Long live Chairman Mao!" was unreal!" One chapter was about a model youth hero who had drowned after jumping into a flood to save an electricity pole because the pole would be used to carry the word of Mao.

With great difficulty, I managed to borrow some English language textbooks published before the Cultural Revolution from lecturers in my department and from Jin-ming, who sent me books from his university by post. These contained extracts from writers like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde, and stories from European and American history. They were a joy to read, but much of my energy went toward finding them and then trying to keep them.

Whenever someone approached, I would quickly cover the books with a newspaper. This was only partly because of their 'bourgeois' content. It was also important not to appear to be studying too conscientiously, and not to arouse my fellow students' jealousy by reading something far beyond them. Although we were studying English, and were paid par fly for our propaganda value by the government to do this, we must not be seen to be too devoted to o ~ Jung Chang

It was much smaller than her own, but everyone seemed closer, as if each member were organically attached to one seamless body, whereas her enormous extended family felt like cheerfully mismatched Lego bricks in a large bucket. ~ Min Jin Lee

Liya's letter threw her parents ~ Ha Jin

Observing and understanding the social media phenomenon is one thing-leveraging this trend for advertising purposes is quite another. While most companies recognize the value of social media advertising opportunities, not many have figured out how to execute these kinds of campaigns and the unique risks they entail because of the potential that a viral marketing effort can backfire and actually harm a brand. ~ Stephen Jin-Woo Kim

People are rotten everywhere you go. They're no good. You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let's see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants." Sunja ~ Min Jin Lee

There's nothing fucking worse than knowing that you're just like everybody else. ~ Min Jin Lee

In Japan, there's a TV series called Jin. It deals with time travel. I like stories about time travel. It's a story about people living in modern day that travel back to the Edo era. Those things really interest me. ~ Yuji Horii

Fuck you!"
Randy pulled a squirt bottle from his desk and sprayed us both. "Hush," he said.
Jin winced "Now, that's just unprofessional!"
"Quit bitching," I said, shaking the water off my face.
"You may be used to taking shots in the face, but I'm not," he said.
Okay, that was a good one. "Go fuck yourself," I said. ~ Andy Weir

Japan would save China by bringing technological advancements to a rural economy; Japan would end poverty in Asia and make it prosper; Japan would protect Asia from the pernicious hands of Western imperialism; and only Germany, Japan's true and fearless ally, was fighting the evils of the West. ~ Min Jin Lee

Sun and moon have no light left, earth is dark;
Our women's world is sunk so deep, who can help us?
Jewelry sold to pay this trip across the seas,
Cut off from my family I leave my native land.
Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand years of poison,
With heated heart arouse all women's spirits.
Alas, this delicate kerchief here
Is half stained with blood, and half with tears. ~ Qiu Jin

Optimists are usually inexperienced. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Our stable and eternal verities are being challenged. There's a kind of postmodern breakdown in journalism. The breadth of information sources and the speed of transmission are growing; but the traditional gravity of news has eroded. -Jin Yongquan ~ Judy Polumbaum

But ideas can make men forget their own interests. And the guys in charge will exploit men who believe in ideas too much. ~ Min Jin Lee

On that day, we couldn't reach the conclusion whose hero is the strongest. And today when we are 41 years old, we can protect neither the Earth nor the women we love. We are now just the anti-heroic men, struggling with everyday life. Those boys wo wanted to become heroes ... where did they all go? Whose heroes can we become at the end? ~ Kim Do-Jin

Casey meant it when she said, 'Forgive us for our debts as we forgive our debtors,' because they were for her the hardest words to live by, and by saying them, she hoped they'd become possible. Like Ted, Casey would never discuss her ambivalent views on religion. She was honest enough to admit that her privacy cloaked a fear: the fear of being found out as a hypocrite" (Free Food For Millionaires, p.100-101.) ~ Min Jin Lee

A mother can see into her child's heart merely by looking at his shadow. ~ Jang Jin-sung

the stories of Koreans in Japan should be told somehow when so much of their lives had been despised, denied, and erased. ~ Min Jin Lee

To me, my feelings and pride are important. Although I like you it's not enough to be used like that. ~ Kim Do-Jin

I remember clearly the afternoon that she stood at the corner beside the door of the tourist centre in Gdansk. ~ You Jin

A place without meaning is no place to be. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

When you come to me, wear these. On a good day, prettily. ~ Kim Do-Jin

Asleep you can experience many hours whilst only a few waking moments have passed. This is why dreams are an ideal platform for training. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

In short, he must be loyal only to his art. ~ Ha Jin

a man must learn to forgive - to know what is important, that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement. ~ Min Jin Lee

She turned to Jin now, sprawled by the fire, his hat pulled over his eyes. "I can tell you're awake. Are you coming with us?" He sighed, tipping his hat backward. "Yeah, yeah. Just trying to get some sleep before going to near certain death. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

Maybe I can never fly, Baby I can't touch the sky. ~ Jin

Someone who works only for the money will give you trouble one day because of money. ~ Jin Sun Mi

A man weighing one hundred jin can eat ten oxen, each weighing ten thousand jin. He just needs time. ~ Jin Yong

There was consolation: The people you loved, they were always there with you, she had learned. Sometimes, she could be in front of a train kiosk or the window of a bookstore, and she could feel Noa's small hand when he was a boy, and she would close her eyes and think of his sweet grassy smell and remember that he had always tried his best. At those moments, it was good to be alone to hold on to him. ~ Min Jin Lee

Once you've done it with him, he won't abandon you. If he really loves you, if he's a man with a heart, he'll follow you wherever you go. If he doesn't, he isn't the man you want, is he? ~ Ha Jin

You strive to have a good heart. But what is a heart? Just a chunk of flesh that a dog can eat. ~ Ha Jin

Ha Jin writes: 'Some great men and women are fortified and redeemed through their suffering, and they even seek sadness instead of happiness, just as Van Gogh asserted, 'Sorrow is better than joy,' and Balzac declared, 'Suffering is one's teacher.' But these dicta are suitable only for extraordinary souls, for the select few. For ordinary people like us, too much suffering can only make us meaner, crazier, pettier, and more wretched ~ David Sheff

Jin always smiled at me like we were both about to be in big trouble and he loved it. The prince smiled like he was forgiving you for it. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

The truth is I had no idea what I was doing when it came to you, Amani. I tried to leave you in Dustwalk because I didn't want to drag you into my brother's war. I came back for you because I didn't want to see you die at the hands of my other brother. But either way, I was bound to wind up doing one or the other. Just depended on which one." His hand came up like he was going to reach for me but dropped to his side instead. "I was glad in Sazi when I saw you'd gone because it meant you'd escaped on your own path, and I was glad when you took the compass because it gave me a reason to go after you. And yes, I lied to keep you out of Izman because I was afraid someone would know what you were and you'd get snapped up and sold to the Sultan. And I steered you toward Dassama figuring there was a chance I might be able to deliver you to the sea and get you out of this country before it killed you. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

You said, 'Life is a tragedy, but its meaning lies in how we face the tragedy. ~ Ha Jin

Noa stared at her. She would always believe that he was someone else, that he wasn't himself but some fanciful idea of a foreign person; she would always feel like she was someone special because she had condescended to be with someone everyone else hated. His presence would prove to the world that she was a good person, an educated person, a liberal person. Noa didn't care about being Korean when he was with her; in fact, he didn't care about being Korean or Japanese with anyone. He wanted to be just himself, whatever that meant; he wanted to forget himself sometimes. But that wasn't possible. It would never be possible with her. ~ Min Jin Lee

Indifference is the strongest contempt. ~ Ha Jin

I don't think of myself as a dissident, and I'm more of an immigrant than an exile, ~ Ha Jin

I write just because the fire of my emotion is burning. Had I not, I would not have been able to find peace. ~ Ba Jin

Is there a reason you keep coming back injured when I leave you for five seconds, or is it---" His voice carried too loud, and I clapped a hand over his mouth, shutting him up.
"Don't flatter yourself," I said quietly. "I'm always getting injured when you're around, too. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

Today the two hundred million men in our country are entering into a civilized new world ... but we, the two hundred million women, are still kept down in the dungeon. ~ Qiu Jin

She would always believe that he was someone else, that he wasn't himself but some fanciful idea of a foreign person; she would always feel like she was someone special because she had condescended to be with someone everyone else hated. His presence would prove to the world that she was a good person, an educated person, a liberal person. Noa didn't care about being Korean when he was with her; in fact, he didn't care about being Korean or Japanese with anyone. He wanted to be, to be just himself, whatever that meant; he wanted to forget himself sometimes. ~ Min Jin Lee

Dad, would the love end just because a person dies? ~ Park Soo Jin

Class, I'd like us all to give a warm mayflower elementary welcome to your new friend and classmate Jing Jang!"
"Jin Wang"
"Jin wang!"
"He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!"
"San Francisco."
"San Francisco!"
"Yes, Timmy."
"My momma says Chinese people eat dogs."
"Now be nice, Timmy!" -km sure Jin doesn't do that! In fact, Jin's family probably stopped that sort of thing as soon as they came to the united states!"
The only other asian in my class was Suzy Nakamura.
When the class finally figured out that we weren't related, rumors began to circulate that suzy and I were arranged to be married on her thirteenth birthday.
We avoided each other as much as possible.
(30-31) ~ Gene Luen Yang

With an air of confession, Jin lowered his voice. Eggs come out of chickens' butts, you know. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

How do I know that loving life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death I am not like a man who, having left home in his youth, has forgotten the way back?
Lady Li was the daughter of the border guard of Ai. When she was first taken captive and brought to the state of Jin, she wept until her tears drenched the collar of her robe. But later, when she went to live in the palace of the ruler, shared his couch with him, and ate the delicious meats of his table, she wondered why she had ever wept. How do I know that the dead do not wonder why they ever longed for life? ~ Zhuangzi

Casey glanced at her plate again, recalling the posters of her elementary school lunchroom: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT. So, how much you ate indicated the quantity of your desire. Walter was also implying that how quickly you got your food revealed the likelihood of achieving your goals. She was in fact terribly hungry, but she'd pretended to be otherwise to be ladylike and had moved away from the table to be agreeable, and now she'd continue to be hungry (Free Food For Millionaires, p.92.) ~ Min Jin Lee

You will be happy. Will it satisfy you if I say again I will keep a promise I made before? Tomorrow you will be happier than today, the day after tomorrow you will be happier than tomorrow. I promise you. ~ Kim Do-Jin

Does anyone want to know the details of how a plasma cutter works?" Jin asked. Nobody raised their hands. "They're really cool," she said. Nobody raised their hands. ~ Missy Meyer

Verily, a man without fear is either dead or happy to die. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

I would even argue that, for many displaced people, nostalgia is also blended with fear - the fear of uncertainty and of facing the challenges posed by the larger world and the fear of the absence of the clarity and confidence provided by the past. In essence, nostalgia is associated mostly with the experience of a particular type of migrants, namely, exiles. ~ Ha Jin