Peter Hessler Quotes

Sometimes they seemed to grasp instinctively at the worst of both worlds: the worst modern habits, the worst traditional beliefs. ~ Peter Hessler

Sometimes I thought of the Peace Corps as a reverse refugee organization, displacing all of us lost Midwesterners, and it was probably the only government entity that taught Americans to abandon key national characteristics. Pride, ambition, impatience, the instinct to control, the desire to accumulate, the missionary impulse - all of it slipped away. ~ Peter Hessler

Virtually every Chinese citizen whom I came to know well was doing something technically illegal, although usually the infraction was so minor that they didn't have to worry. It might be a sketchy apartment registration or a small business that bought its products from unlicensed wholesalers. Sometimes, it was comic: late at night, there were always people out walking their dogs in Beijing, because the official dog registration was ridiculously expensive. The dogs were usually ratlike Pekingese, led by sleepy owners who snapped to alertness if they saw a cop. They were guerillas walking toy dogs. ~ Peter Hessler

Nevertheless, Chinese drivers haven't grasped the subtleties of headlight use. Most people keep their lights off until it's pitch-dark, and then they flip on the brights. Almost nobody uses headlights in rain, fog, snow, or twilight conditions - in fact, this is one of the few acts guaranteed to annoy a Chinese driver. They don't mind if you tailgate, or pass on the right, or drive on the the sidewalk. You can back down a highway entrance ramp without anybody batting an eyelash. But if you switch on your lights during a rainstorm, approaching drivers will invariably flash their brights in annoyance. ~ Peter Hessler

I realized that as a thinking person his advantage lay precisely in his lack of formal education. Nobody told him what to think, and thus he was free to think clearly. ~ Peter Hessler

In China, much of life involves skirting regulations, and one of the basic truths is that forgiveness comes easier than permission. ~ Peter Hessler

I hit him as hard as I could. His hands were full of my belongings, and every time I punched him he dropped something. I slugged him and my camera popped out; I hit him again and there was my money belt; another punch and my shorts flew up in the air. ~ Peter Hessler

Alan Paul plunges into Chinese life and takes us along for the ride, through vegetable markets, used-car lots, Taoist temples, divey bars, and a beachside music festival before thousands of cheering fans. He conveys the thrills and challenges of living abroad, the confusions and regrets, and most of all the opportunity to become the person we always hoped to be. ~ Peter Hessler

I love soap operas - the stories, the plots! And I love the game shows and the courtroom dramas and the detectives - Jessica Fletcher, 'Columbo,' 'Perry Mason,' 'L.A. Law.' Any sense of guilt appeals to me in a television program - a sense of guilt, or a sense of making a lot of money. ~ Peter Ackroyd

curing' victims of multiple-personality disorder is actually tantamount to serial murder. The issue has remained controversial in the wake of recent findings that the human brain can potentially contain up to one hundred forty fully-sentient personalities without significant sensory/motor impairment. The tribunal will also consider whether encouraging a multiple personality to reintegrate voluntarily - again, a traditionally therapeutic act - should be redefined as assisted suicide. Cross-linked to next item under cognition and legal. ~ Peter Watts

Firstly, people take for granted that the E.U. has created the biggest economic space in the world. ~ Peter Mandelson

'Lovelace' was really great. I got to work with the wonderful Amanda Seyfried, Hank Azaria and Peter Sarsgaard, so it can't get no better than that, right? ~ Cory Hardrict

I once knew a fellow who committed robbery with violence, and he was sentenced to a long prison stretch and 12 strokes of the cat. He'd been injured during the robbery, so they put him in hospital to make him better so that they could make him worse. During the administration of the cat, he fainted after six strokes, and the doctor put him in hospital again. And he got very friendly with the nurses and the doctors, and after a while they got him well enough to go back and take the next six strokes. I saw him afterward and I said: "Oh, Jesus - that bloody law, that bloody judge!" But he said: "I don't want the fellow who made the law, and I don't want the fellow who passed the sentence. All I want is the fellow who held the bloody whip. ~ Peter O'Toole

I don't think that because you die and move on to somewhere else that you lose your sense of humor. ~ Peter Jackson

When you DJ, you're just on your own, which is nice because there's no argument. ~ Peter Hook

Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong ... And yet, a person can perform only from strength. ~ Peter Drucker

You know you've reached rock bottom when you're standing on the beach, looking to the horizon, and you don't notice you'r ankle-deep in dead fish. ~ Peter Lerangis

Marketing is not a function, it is the whole business seen from the customer's point of view. ~ Peter Drucker

I've learned there is a void in adult stories across the land. Hollywood, whatever that is anymore, is losing their ability to tell those stories because they're not even thinking of that audience. ~ Peter Riegert

For any act to be morally right, three things are necessary: (1) right act, (2) right motive, and (3) right circumstances. If any one of these factors is not right, the act is wrong. ~ Peter Kreeft

Transformation occurs when existing solutions, assumed truths and past decisions are exposed as unrealistic and self-defeating. ~ Peter Shepherd

I was born curious. ~ Peter Guber

He (Peter) doesn't know if he's looking into the eyes of a madman, or the eyes of a King. ~ Roma Downey

I guess basically one wants to feel that one's life has amounted to more than just consuming products and generating garbage. I think that one likes to look back and say that one's done the best one can to make this a better place for others. You can look at it from this point of view: What greater motivation can there be than doing whatever one possibly can to reduce pain and suffering? ~ Peter Singer

Those who wander are always objects of suspicion and sometimes even of fear. ~ Peter Ackroyd

A hero is entitled to his happy ending, when it comes at last. ~ Peter S. Beagle

The music and applause fast fading from his ears, Bruce would lay down his guitar, grit his teeth, and walk dutifuly back into his father's charred vision of the world. ~ Peter Ames Carlin

Then they came out of the narrow valley and at once she saw the reason. There stood Peter and Edmund and all the rest of Aslan's army fighting desperately against the crowd of horrible creatures whom she had seen last night; only now, in the daylight, they looked even stranger and more evil and more deformed. ~ R.J. Palacio

Stuff goes wrong. Expect it, learn from it, fix it. That's how remarkable happens. ~ Peter Diamandis

The love had grown cold, and in the night he heard it whistling through the chambers of his heart like a lost and gently crying wind. ~ William Peter Blatty

I like a lot of glasses about
it highers the tone. ~ Peter Greenaway

I've seen more institutions damaged by too much caution than by rashness, though I've seen both. ~ Peter F. Drucker

There are only three indispensable things: the audience, the actor and the author. The rest is dross. ~ Peter O'Toole

Thinking ish-ly allowed ideas to flow freely. ~ Peter H. Reynolds

Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies. ~ Peter Lynch

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us. ~ Peter De Vries

Once you start to look into the guts of climate change you find that just about every scientific institution in the world is conducting research on the issue. ~ Peter Garrett

That's the problem with Peter," said Theresa.
"Only the one?" said Peter. ~ Orson Scott Card

You can't go through a divorce and then get back together. ~ Peter Andre

There is no real origin for anything. Everything just exists. Everything just exists in order to exist. ~ Peter Ackroyd

Is there something about the gay experience, being gay and the gay experience, that pushes us even more than other people toward competition? ~ Peter Thiel

Everybody, doesn't matter who you are, escapes time. And for me, nothing is stranger than the thought that kids are just kids. Nobody is just anything. Whether you are eight or eighty, you've got your own unique take on how weird this world is. ~ Peter Orner

Only in psychiatry is the existence of physical disease determined by APA presidential proclamations, by committee decisions, and even, by a vote of the members of APA, not to mention the courts. ~ Peter Breggin

In your eyes I am complete. ~ Peter Gabriel

A dead martyr can be manipulated by his heirs; a living one is apt to drag his colleagues to the extremes dictated by the contingent pressures of his martyrdom. ~ John Peter Nettl

Lir said, "It is my right. A hero is entitled to his happy ending, when it comes at last." But Schmendrick answered, "This is not the end, either for you or for her. ~ Peter S. Beagle