Minahan Ng Quotes

Change doesn't just happen," her mother had always said, echoing the Shaker motto. "It has to be planned. ~ Celeste Ng

Was she sad? She was angry. Furious at the smallness of her mother's life. ~ Celeste Ng

Lydia, five years old, standing on tiptoe to watch vinegar and baking soda foam in the sink. Lydia tugging a heavy book from the shelf, saying, "Show me again, show me another." Lydia, touching the stethoscope, ever so gently, to her mother's heart. Tears blur Marilyn's sight. It had not been science that Lydia had loved ~ Celeste Ng

Light field photography unleashes the power of the light, to forever change how everyone takes and experiences pictures. ~ Ren Ng

Developing a prototype early is the number one goal for our designers, or anyone else who has an idea, for that matter. We don't trust it until we can see it and feel it. ~ Win Ng

You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it. ~ Celeste Ng

For low light, all the light rays participate. We're using all the light coming through a large aperture to make a picture with a large depth of field - totally impossible with a conventional camera. ~ Ren Ng

In Tagalog, we call undocumented people 'TNT,' which means tago ng tago, which means 'hiding and hiding.' So that's literally what undocumented means in Tagalog. And that kind of tells you how Filipinos think of this issue, and really any culture, right? ~ Jose Antonio Vargas

Dreaming of his future, he no longer heard all the things she did not say. ~ Celeste Ng

– and Mia realized that she was crossing into a place she would have to go alone. ~ Celeste Ng

as her mother promised to teach them everything a young lady needed to keep a house. As if, Marilyn thought, it might run away when you weren't looking. ~ Celeste Ng

Remember that you are not called to produce successful, upwardly mobile, highly educated, athletically talented machines ... Givi ng your children great opportunities is good; it is not, however, the goal of parenting. Christlikeness is. Above all, seek to raise children who look and act a lot like Jesus. ~ Chip Ingram

People decide what you're like before they even get to know you ~ Celeste Ng

the night before? He had been away four whole ~ Celeste Ng

The reason we know as human beings that pictures have to be focused before you take the shot is because we know if we're not focusing our eyes on something that happens, then it's too late - you can't go searching in your memory to find it because that light never struck your mind. ~ Ren Ng

James slid into his seat and the girl next to him asked, "What's wrong with your eyes?" It wasn't until he heard the horror in the teacher's voice - "Shirley Byron!" - that he realized he was supposed to be embarrassed; the next time it happened, he had learned his lesson and turned red right away. ~ Celeste Ng

But at that moment she had known, with a certainty she would never feel about anything else in her life, that it was right, that she wanted this man in her life. Something inside her said, He understands. What it's like to be different. ~ Celeste Ng

Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way. ~ Celeste Ng

In the dark they are careful of each other, as if they know they are fragile, as if they know they can break. ~ Celeste Ng

It was as if instead of entering a house she was entering the idea of a house, some archetype brought to life here before her. Something she'd only heard about but never seen. ~ Celeste Ng

Benjamin Franklin, who was already in his eighties when he befriended Webster, and who advocated spelling reform, had encouraged the younger man to adopt his ideas. Franklin proposed that we lose c, w, y, and j; modify a and u to represent their different sounds; and adopt a new form of s for sh and a variation on y for ng as well as tweak the h of th to distinguish the sounds of "thy" and "thigh," "swath" and "swathe." If Franklin had had his way, he would have been the Saint Cyril of America - Cyril "perfected" the Greek alphabet for the Russian language; hence the Cyrillic alphabet - and American English would look like Turkish. ~ Mary Norris

The writer's job, after all, is not to dictate meaning, but to give the reader enough pieces to create his or her own satisfying meaning. The story is truly finished - and meaning is made - not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters the story and fills that little ambiguous space, completing the circuit, letting the power flow through. ~ Celeste Ng

A few people insisted that the Cape-to-Cairo Railroad was in Europe. For college students, they have surprising trouble with geography. ~ Celeste Ng

The people are maybe still as aware of the differences but they are more accepting of it that what we saw in the 70s and 80s, but the undercurrent is still there. There are maybe no racial slurs anymore, no firecrackers in mailboxes, the distinction is much more subtle. ~ Celeste Ng

I was reluctant to start the company that would become Lytro, primarily due to my academic background. ~ Ren Ng

People are like stars in the Milky Way. There are millions of them. There are big, small, dead, and dying stars out there. Hindi ikaw ang nag-iisang bituin d'yan sa langit, kaya hindi sa'yo umiikot ang mundo. Puweding makinang ka ngayon, pero asahan mong parating may darating na mas makinang pa sa'yo. Malaki ang posibilidad na mawala sa'yo ang atensiyon ng iba, pero tandaan mo ang isang bagay.

"Whatever happens, you're still a star. There will still be people looking at you, admiring your beauty, and wishing for great things to happen to them with your help. You can't let them down, so you have to continue shining for them. You have to show them directions. That's what stars are for. ~ Luna King

She will figure out what happened to Lydia. She will find out who is responsible. She will find out what went wrong. ~ Celeste Ng

There is something about Midwest in general, that has kind of an underdog quality. ~ Celeste Ng

After a while, the fear became a habit, too. ~ Celeste Ng

It's too late. He's already learned how not to drown. ~ Celeste Ng

They never discussed it, but both came to understand it as a promise: he would always make sure there was a place for her. She would always be able to say, Someone is coming. I am not alone. ~ Celeste Ng

The characteristics of a value-based leader are: other-centredness, calling, competence, and finally character. How do i define character? Two aspects: Integrity ( you must keep your promises, you must live out your life, you must be genuine) and Morality. ~ John Ng

I mean, that's the future, isn't it? In the future we'll all be able to look past race. ~ Celeste Ng

When you are in accord with nature, nature will yield its bounty. This is something that is coming up in our own consciousness now ... recognizi ng that by violating the environment in which we are living, we are really cutting off the energy and source of our own living. And it's this sense of accord, so that living properly in relation to what has to be done in this world one fosters the vitality of the environment. ~ Joseph Campbell

But the problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on. ~ Celeste Ng

Rules existed for a reason: if you followed them, you would succeed; if you didn't, you might burn the world to the ground. ~ Celeste Ng

Everyone keeps looking on their defects. It's not like everyone's perfect, we all are are ugly and at the same time beautiful. It's just how we should carry and believe in ourselves. Nasa attitude yan, wala sa hitsura ~ HaveYouSeenThisGirL

We've got two kinds of language in our heads. The kind we're using now is
acquired. It patterns our brains as we're learning it. But there's also a
tongue that's based in the deep structures of the brain, that everyone shares.
These structures consist of basic neural circuits that have to exist in order to
allow our brains to acquire higher languages."
"Linguistic infrastructure," Uncle Enzo says.
"Yeah. I guess 'deep structure' and 'infrastructure' mean the same thing.
Anyway, we can access those parts of the brain under the right conditions.
Glossolalia -- speaking in tongues -- is the output side of it, where the deep
linguistic structures hook into our tongues and speak, bypassing all the higher,
acquired languages. Everyone's known that for some time."
"You're saying there's an input side, too?" Ng says.
"Exactly. It works in reverse. Under the right conditions, your ears -- or
eyes -- can tie into the deep structures, bypassing the higher language
functions. Which is to say, someone who knows the right words can speak words,
or show you visual symbols, that go past all your defenses and sink right into
your brainstem. Like a cracker who breaks into a computer system, bypasses all
the security precautions, and plugs himself into the core, enabling him to exert
absolute control over the machine."
"In that situation, the people who own the computer are helpless," Ng says.
"R ~ Neal Stephenson

The intricate gears of her mind ticking silently at no one, thoughts pinging the closed windows like a trapped bee. p. 251 ~ Celeste Ng

Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. 1977, May 3, six thirty in the morning, no one knows anything but this innocuous fact: Lydia is late for breakfast. ~ Celeste Ng

As if they were two halves of a mold. He ~ Celeste Ng