Pearl S Buck Quotes

From that house there has come so much life that it ought never to die or fall into ruin ... For me that house was a gateway to America. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden of original sin, not under the doom of Salvation. ~ Pearl S. Buck

As for inhibitions, I've spent a lifetime developing them, and I don't intend to lose them. ~ Pearl S. Buck

My first vivid memory is ... when first I looked into her face and she looked into mine. That I do remember, and that exchanging looks I have carried with me all of my life. We recognized each other. I was her child and she was my mother. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Make love! He disliked the phrase. Could one make love? ~ Pearl S. Buck

there is no such condition in human affairs as absolute truth. There is only truth as people see it, and truth, even in fact, may be kaleidoscopic in its variety. The ~ Pearl S. Buck

Men cannot be free in a nation where women are forbidden freedom. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Love changes," she replied. "When the flame dies, the glow remains, but it no longer centers upon one human creature and it warms the whole soul. Then the soul looks at all human creatures with love diffused. ~ Pearl S. Buck

To repay evil with kindness is the proof of a good man; a superior man blames himself, a common man blames others. ~ Pearl S. Buck

If life were known one moment ahead, how could it be endured? ~ Pearl S. Buck

When men destroy their old gods they will find new ones to take their place. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The first peaches of spring - the first peaches! Buy, eat, purge your bowels of the poisons of winter! ~ Pearl S. Buck

For generations fathers had watched earth and sea. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Nothing is menial where there is love. ~ Pearl S. Buck

People on the whole are very simple-minded, in whatever country one finds them. They are so simple as to take literally, more often than no, the things their leaders tell them. ~ Pearl S. Buck

It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundreth with a beauty. ~ Pearl S. Buck

People everywhere do not concern themselves much beyond the common round of everyday, and this is the chief problem for a democratic government, whose success depends upon an informed and responsible citizenry. ~ Pearl S. Buck

In our changing world nothing changes more than geography. ~ Pearl S. Buck

We must learn to live with danger, " he now said to Kino.
"Do you mean the ocean and the volcano cannot hurt us if we are not afraid?" Kino asked.
"No," his father replied. "I did not say that. Ocean is there and volcano is there. It is true that on any day ocean may rise into storm and volcano may burst into flame. We must accept this fact, but without fear. We must say, 'Someday I shall die, and does it matter whether it is by ocean or volcano, or whether I grow old and weak?' "
"I don't want to think about such things," Kino said.
"it is right for you not to think about them," his father said. "Then do not be afraid. When you are afraid, you are thinking about them all the time. Enjoy life and don not fear death - that is the way of a good Japanese. ~ Pearl S. Buck

And looked sharply across the street. There was only one house ~ Pearl S. Buck

The head raised too high even in good will be struck off too soon. ~ Pearl S. Buck

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free. ~ Pearl S. Buck

A woman's mind is not an instrument apart from her other being. She does not separate herself as man does, now flesh, now mind, now heart. She is there as one, a unity complete and unified. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Chinese are wise in comprehending without many words what is inevitable and inescapable and therefore only to be borne. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Hope must come out of what we have, or it is not hope, but a dream. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The best thing in the world for each of us is that which we can best do, because it gives us the feeling of being useful. That's happiness. ~ Pearl S. Buck

I am an inveterate homemaker, it is at once my pleasure, my recreation, and my handicap. Were I a man, my books would have been written in leisure, protected by a wife and a secretary and various household officials. As it is, being a woman, my work has had to be done between bouts of homemaking. ~ Pearl S. Buck

And from that time on the boys were no longer called Elder and Younger, but they were given school names by the old teacher, and this old man, after inquiring into the occupation of their father, erected two names for the sons; for the elder, Nung En, and for the second Nung Wen, and the first word of each name signified one whose wealth is from the earth. ~ Pearl S. Buck

He had other fires and these flamed higher than Love. ~ Pearl S. Buck

I am never better pleased than when I know a book of mine can be bought for fifty cents or, better still, for twenty-five. No people can be educated or even cultivated until books are cheap enough for everybody to buy. ~ Pearl S. Buck

For no country is a true democracy whose women have not an equal share in life with men, and until we realize this we shall never achieve a real democracy on this earth. ~ Pearl S. Buck

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. ~ Pearl S. Buck

None but the ignorant can be bored by life. To the lovers of learning, life is pure adventure shared with adventurers. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Is our Heaven your God, and is your God our Heaven?' she inquired.
'They are one and the same,' he replied ...
'There is only one true God. He has many names.'
'Then anywhere upon the round earth, by whatever seas, those who believe in any God believe in the One?' she asked.
'And so are brothers,' he said, agreeing.
'And if I do not believe in any?' she inquired willfully.
'God is patient,' he said. 'God waits. Is there not eternity?'
page 206 Pavilion of Women ~ Pearl S. Buck

I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The proper place to eat lobster ... is in a lobster shack as close to the sea as possible. There is no menu card because there is nothing else to eat except boiled lobster with melted butter. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The main barrier between East and West today is that the white man is not willing to give up his superiority and the colored man is no longer willing to endure his inferiority. ~ Pearl S. Buck

And to him war was a thing like earth and sky and water and why it was no one knew but only that it was. ~ Pearl S. Buck

There will be no real content among American women unless they are made and kept more ignorant or unless they are given equal opportunity with men to use what they have been taught. And American men will not be really happy until their women are. ~ Pearl S. Buck

It is not healthy when a nation lives within a nation, as colored Americans are living inside America. A nation cannot live confident of its tomorrow if its refugees are among its own citizens. ~ Pearl S. Buck

On this earth, though far and near, without love, there's only fear. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The best government in the world, the best religion, the best traditions of any people, depend upon the good or evil of the men and women who administer them. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Crowds moved wherever he went, across the bridge to Manhattan, in New York, wherever he went, life flowed and eddied, but he was not part of it. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Somehow I had learned from Thoreau, who doubtless learned it from Confucius, that if a man comes to do his own good for you, then must you flee that man and save yourself ~ Pearl S. Buck

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Well I know I am ugly and cannot be loved - ~ Pearl S. Buck

Iowans know themselves and what they are doing. They are doing well. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Can one spit on a smiling face?" he inquired; or he said, "Vengeance cannot last a night's sleep. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Fresh tadpoles coming out in the spring should be washed clean in cold well-water, and swallowed whole three or four days after menstruation. If a woman swallows fourteen live tadpoles on the first day and ten more on the following day, she will not conceive for five years. If contraception in still required after that, she can repeat the formula twice and be for ever sterile... This formula is good in that it is effective, safe and not expensive. The defect is that it can be used only in the spring. ~ Pearl S. Buck

When hope is taken away from a people, moral degeneration follows swiftly thereafter. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Yes, she now believed that when her body died, her soul would go on. Gods she did not worship, and faith she had none, but love she had and forever. Love alone had awakened her sleeping soul and had made it deathless.
She knew she was immortal. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Doing and being are very closely tied together, and unless you are doing what you secretly want to do, you aren't able to be the sort of person you want to be. ~ Pearl S. Buck

To live in the midst of danger is to know how good life is," his father replied.
"But if we are lost in the danger?" Kino asked anxiously.
"To live in the presence of death makes us brave and strong," Kino's father replied. "That is why our people never fear death. We see it too often and we do not fear it. To die a little later or a little sooner does not matter. But to live bravely, to lobe life, to see how beautiful the trees are and the mountains, yes, even the sea, to enjoy work because it produces food for life - in these things we Japanese are a fortunate people. We love life because we live in danger. We do not fear death because we understand that life and death are necessary to each other."
"What is death?" Kino asked.
"Death is the great gateway," Kino's father said. ~ Pearl S. Buck

and his voice came from him in a whisper, ~ Pearl S. Buck

Every era of renaissance has come out of new freedoms for peoples. The coming renaissance will be greater than any in human history, for this time all the peoples of the earth will share in it. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Well, and you may have lived in the courts of the Old Lord, and you were accounted beautiful, but I have been a man's wife and I have borne him sons, and you are still a slave. ~ Pearl S. Buck

An Englishman is never afraid of being laughed at. He just thinks the other fellow is a fool. But Americans still can't risk anybody laughing at them. ~ Pearl S. Buck

But I am fearful of it because I hear she is learned in the Four Books, and learning has never accompanied beauty in women. ~ Pearl S. Buck

God - if there is a God - would not choose one man above another or one people above another. ~ Pearl S. Buck

[I]n any war a victory means another war, and yet another, until some day inevitably the tides turn, and the victor is the vanquished, and the circle reverses itself, but remains nevertheless a circle. ~ Pearl S. Buck

From the stars," she thought, "doubtless all things are seen. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The basic discovery about any people is the discovery of the relationship between men and women. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The feet bear the burden of the body, the head the burden of the mind, and the heart the burden of the spirit. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Nature knows no sex limitations and does not bestow brains upon men alone. Daughters inherit gifts exactly as often and as much as sons. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Chinese were bornwith an accumulated wisdom, a natural sophistication, an intelligent naivete, and unless they were transplanted too young, these qualities ripened in them ... If ever I am homesick for China, now that I am home in my own country, it is when I discover here no philosophy. Our people have opinions and creeds and prejudices and ideas but as yet no philosophy. ~ Pearl S. Buck

As for their child, I am moved in two ways. He will have his own world to make. Being of neither East nor West purely, he will be rejected of each, for none will understand him. But I think, if he has the strength of both his parents, he will understand both worlds, and so overcome. ~ Pearl S. Buck

To do good, to love justice, to grant that all men had an equal right to a pleasant life, these things Kung Chen believed in, and believing, he did all he could to perform his belief. ~ Pearl S. Buck

What a man does in his own house cannot concern the nation. ~ Pearl S. Buck

For our democracy has been marred by imperialism, and it has been enlightened only by individual and sporadic efforts at freedom. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Purposeless activity may be a phase of death. ~ Pearl S. Buck

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. ~ Pearl S. Buck

We need to restore the full meaning of that old word, duty. It is the other side of rights. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Man was lost if he went to a usurer, for the interest ran faster than a tiger upon him. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession. ~ Pearl S. Buck

God is not in the vastness of greatness. He is hid in the vastness of smallness . He is not in the general. He is in the particular. ~ Pearl S. Buck

When the rich are too rich there are ways, and when the poor are too poor there are ways. Last winter we sold two girls and endured, and this winter, if this one my woman bears is a girl, we will sell again. One slave I have kept - the first. The others it is better to sell than to kill, although there are those who prefer to kill them before they draw breath. This is one of the ways when the poor are too poor. When the rich are too rich there is a way, and if I am not mistaken, that way will come soon. ~ Pearl S. Buck

It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late. ~ Pearl S. Buck

You cannot be happy until you understand that life is sad ~ Pearl S. Buck

When we define democracy now it must still be as a thing hoped for but not seen. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The superior man leads not by violence or by coarse physical acts but by the pure intelligence of a wise mind. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Integrity is honesty carried through the fibres of the being and the whole mind, into thought as well as action so that the person is complete in honesty. That kind of integrity I put above all else as an essential to leadership. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Science and religion, religion and science, put it as it may, they are the two sides of the same glass, through which we see darkly until these two focus together, reveal the truth. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The narrator refers to a character as an oily scoundrel whose hands were heavy with the money that stuck to them. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word-excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it. ~ Pearl S. Buck

He was part of a whole, a people scattered over the earth and yet eternally one and indivisible. Wherever a Jew lived, in whatever safety and isolation, he still belonged to his people. ~ Pearl S. Buck

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Prejudice ... is a subjective emotion which expresses itself upon others only because of an inner necessity for release. The object is irrelevant and opportune. The person who feels prejudice is the victim of himself and his own unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Life is not what he wants it to be and it has not been what he wishes it had been. ~ Pearl S. Buck

In silence they lay close, without passion, but closer than passion could bring them they lay close. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Love dies only when growth stops. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Be proud of your child, accept him as he is and do not heed the words and stares of those who know no better. This child has a meaning for you and for all children. You will find a joy you cannot now suspect in fulfilling his life for and with him. ~ Pearl S. Buck

I would ask my teacher a question," Yehonala said.
"Ask," Lady Miao replied. She was brushing fine quick strokes upon a large sheet of paper spread upon a square table which the eunuch had brought to her side.
"When may I paint a picture of my own?" Yehonala asked. Her teacher held her hand poised for an instant and cast a sidelong look from her narrowed eyes. "When I can no longer command you. ~ Pearl S. Buck

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday. ~ Pearl S. Buck

His problem was the eternal question: What should he be? Inventor, scientist, artist - the energy he felt surging through him, an energy far more than physical and yet pervading the restlessness of his body, was a burden to him until he could find the path for its release. ~ Pearl S. Buck

This anxiety to keep his father from anger was wearisome to him. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Friendship between tow persons, or two nations, is an unbreakable bond, a tie which cannot be cut. An honourable heart does not cast aside a friend because he is in trouble, nor even if he changes his nature and becomes a criminal. Between two nations friendship must also be eternal, else the friend is false and being false in one event was always false. And what was our crime against the Americans? The Great Change? But is it a crime to change a government? By whose law can it be called a crime? It is of no more importance, between friends, than for one to change his garment! For this lack of reason our love for Americans is changed to hate. I fear for the future! A generation is growing up here in our country which has never seen an American face or heard an American voice. What do they know of Americans except to hate them as they are taught to do? There is no hate so dangerous as that which once was love.
....
- To the Americans, Communism is a crime. They will have none of it.
- But why, when it is ours, not theirs?
....
- I suppose this American concern with a form of government springs from their own history. Their ancestors fled from Europe to escape tyranny from their ancient rulers. Freedom was their dream. To them, therefore, tyranny is endemic in Communism. They will have none of it. It is not we who are Chinese whom they hate. It is the tyranny they imagine. ~ Pearl S. Buck

War is the most devastating endemic and epidemic disease the human race has to endure, and yet too little has been done to discover and eliminate its cause by intelligent early control. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Write a novel if you must, but think of money as an unlikely accident. Get your reward out of writing it, and try to be content with that. ~ Pearl S. Buck

The tears of the old come as easily as the tears of children, ~ Pearl S. Buck