South East Asia Quotes

John Foster Dulles had called on me in his capacity as Secretary of State, and he had exhausted every argument to persuade me to place Cambodia under the protection of the South East Asia Treaty Organization. ~ Norodom Sihanouk

A recent report by UNEP and Interpol estimated that between 50 to 90 per cent of logging in key tropical countries of the Amazon basin, Central Africa and South East Asia is being carried out by organized crime. This threatens not only attempts to eradicate poverty and deforestation but also efforts to combat climate change. ~ Achim Steiner

My favorite species to study would be Cobras and King Cobras which are two different families. They're very intelligent, and they're beautiful looking animals. Where they come from are countries and regions which I spend a lot of time in - South East Asia and India, those are places I go to fairly often, and so the cobras are my main interest. It's not a snake I can maintain, but when I see them in zoos and what not, I find them interesting. ~ Henry Rollins

In the end, everyone came to the conclusion that however ungainly, however inefficient, however elliptical ASEAN's ways are, it's still better than not having an ASEAN. That is the genius of ASEAN foreign policy. ~ George Yeo

88. People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I've been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it's the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris. ~ Roman Payne

The victory of the Revolution's will and yours over the stooge pocket is regarded as a victory for the world revolution everywhere, just as the victory of the revolutionaries in South East Asia was a victory of revolutionaries everywhere. ~ Saddam Hussein

The imagination is also sometimes commended for offering us in vicarious form experiences which we are unable to enjoy at first hand. If you can't afford an air ticket to Kuala Lumpur, you can always read Conrad and imagine yourself in South-East Asia. If you have been monotonously married for forty years, you can always lay furtive hands on a copy of James Joyce's letters. Literature on this view is a kind of supplement to our unavoidably impoverished lives - a sort of spiritual prosthesis which extends our capabilities beyond their normal restricted range. It is true that everyone's experience is bound to be limited, and that art can valuably augment it. But why the lives of so many people should be imaginatively impoverished is then a question that can be easily passed over. ~ Terry Eagleton

Love, is it morning risen or night deceased
That makes the mirth of this triumphant east?
Is it bliss given or bitterness put by
That makes most glad men's hearts at love's high feast?
Grief smiles, joy weeps, that day should live and die.

"Is it with soul's thirst or with body's drouth
That summer yearns out sunward to the south,
With all the flowers that when thy birth drew nigh
Were molten in one rose to make thy mouth?
O love, what care though day should live and die?

"Is the sun glad of all love on earth,
The spirit and sense and work of things and worth?
Is the moon sad because the month must fly
And bring her death that can but bring back birth?
For all these things as day must live and die.

"Love, is it day that makes thee thy delight
Or thou that seest day made out of thy light?
Love, as the sun and sea are thou and I,
Sea without sun dark, sun without sea bright;
The sun is one though day should live and die.

"O which is elder, night or light, who knows?
And life or love, which first of these twain grows?
For life is born of love to wail and cry,
And love is born of life to heal his woes,
And light of night, that day should live and die.

"O sun of heaven above the wordly sea,
O very love, what light is this of thee!
My sea of soul is deep as thou art high,
But all thy light is shed through all of me ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

In the Ottoman times, there were itinerant storytellers called "meddah. " They would go to coffee houses, where they would tell a story in front of an audience, often improvising. With each new person in the story, the meddah would change his voice, impersonating that character. Everybody could go and listen, you know ordinary people, even the sultan, Muslims and non-Muslims. Stories cut across all boundaries. Like "The Tales of Nasreddin Hodja," which were very popular throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and Asia. Today, stories continue to transcend borders ~ Elif Shafak

America has no north, no south, no east, no west. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south. We are one and undivided. ~ Sam Watkins

THE GHOST OF THE AUTHOR'S MOTHER HAS A CONVERSATION WITH HIS FIANCÉE ABOUT HIGHWAYS

...and down south, honey. When the side of the road began to swell with dead and dying things, that's when us black children knew it was summer. Daddy didn't keep clocks in the house. Ain't no use when the sky round those parts always had some flames runnin' to horizon, lookin' like the sun was always out. back when I was a little girl, I swear, them white folk down south would do anything to stop another dark thing from touching the land, even the nighttime. We ain't have streetlights, or some grandmotherly voice riding through the fields on horseback tellin' us when to come inside. What we had was the stomach of a deer, split open on route 59. What we had was flies resting on the exposed insides of animals with their tongues touching the pavement. What we had was the smell of gunpowder and the promise of more to come, and, child, that'll get you home before the old folks would break out the moonshine and celebrate another day they didn't have to pull the body of someone they loved from the river. I say 'river' because I want you to always be able to look at the trees without crying. When we moved east, I learned how a night sky can cup a black girl in its hands and ask for forgiveness. My daddy sold the pistol he kept in the sock drawer and took me to the park. Those days, I used to ask him what he feared, and he always said "the bottom of a good glass." And then he stopped answer ~ Hanif Abdurraqib

Everybody says: the Kremlin, the Kremlin. They all go on about it, but I've never seen it. The number of times (thousands) I've been drunk or hung over, traipsing round Moscow, north-south, east-west, end to end, straight through or any old way - and I've never once seen the Kremlin.

For instance, yesterday - yesterday I didn't see it again, though I was buzzing round that area the whole evening and it's not as if I was particularly drunk. I mean, as soon as I came out onto Savyelov Station, I had a glass of Zubrovka for starters, since I know from experience that as an early-morning tipple, nobody's so far dreamed up anything better.

Anyway, a glass of Zubrovka. Then after that - on Kalyaev Street - another glass, only not Zubrovka this time, but coriander vodka. A friend of mine used to say coriander had a dehumanizing effect on a person, i.e, it refreshes your parts but it weakens your spirit. For some reason or other it had the opposite effect on me, i.e., my spirit was refreshed, while my parts all went to hell. But I do agree it's dehumanizing, so that's why I topped it up with two glasses of Zhiguli beer, plus some egg-nog straight from the bottle, in the middle of Kalyaev Street.

Of course, you're saying: come on, Venya, get on with it - what did you have next? And I couldn't say for sure. I remember - I remember quite distinctly in fact - I had two glasses of Hunter's vodka, on Chekhov Street. But I couldn't have made it across th ~ Venedikt Erofeev

Look at South Africa, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East. They still have many problems, setbacks as well as breakthroughs, but basically changes have happened that were considered unthinkable a decade ago. ~ Dalai Lama

I like rainbows.

We came back down to the meadow near the steaming terrace and sat in the river, just where one of the bigger hot streams poured into the cold water of the Ferris Fork. It is illegal – not to say suicidal – to bathe in any of the thermal features of the park. But when those features empty into the river, at what is called a hot pot, swimming and soaking are perfectly acceptable. So we were soaking off our long walk, talking about our favorite waterfalls, and discussing rainbows when it occurred to us that the moon was full. There wasn't a hint of foul weather. And if you had a clear sky and a waterfall facing in just the right direction…
Over the course of a couple of days we hked back down the canyon to the Boundary Creek Trail and followed it to Dunanda Falls, which is only about eight miles from the ranger station at the entrance to the park. Dunanda is a 150-foot-high plunge facing generally south, so that in the afternoons reliable rainbows dance over the rocks at its base. It is the archetype of all western waterfalls. Dunenda is an Indian name; in Shoshone it means "straight down," which is a pretty good description of the plunge.
...
…We had to walk three miles back toward the ranger station and our assigned campsite. We planned to set up our tents, eat, hang our food, and walk back to Dunanda Falls in the dark, using headlamps. We could be there by ten or eleven. At that time the full moon would clear the east ridge of the d ~ Tim Cahill

I meant no harm I most truly did not, but I had to grow bigger so bigger I got. I biggered my factory, I biggered my roads, I biggered the wagons, I biggered the loads, of the Thneeds I shipped out I was shipping them forth from the South, to the East, to the West. To the North, I went right on biggering selling more thneeds. And I biggered my money which everyone needs. ~ Dr. Seuss

A child, obeying his father and mother, goes wherever he is told, east or west, south or north. And the yin and yang - how much more are they to a man than father or mother! Now that they have brought me to the verge of death, if I should refuse to obey them, how perverse I would be! What fault is it of theirs? The Great Clod burdens me with form, labors me with life, eases me in old age, and rests me in death. So if I think well of my life, for the same reason I must think well of my death. When a skilled smith is casting metal, if the metal should leap up and say, 'I insist upon being made into a Moye!' he would surely regard it as very inauspicious metal indeed. Now, having had the audacity to take on human form once, if I should say, 'I don't want to be anything but a man! Nothing but a man!', the Creator would surely regard me as a most inauspicious sort of person. So now I think of heaven and earth as a great furnace, and the Creator as a skilled smith. Where could he send me that would not be all right? I will go off to sleep peacefully, and then with a start I will wake up. ~ Zhuangzi

It appears that some part of Slothrop ran into the AWOL Džabajev one night in the heart of downtown Niederschaumdorf. (Some believe that fragments of Slothrop have grown into consistent personae of their own. If so, there's no telling which of the Zone's present-day population are offshoots of his original scattering. There's supposed to be a last photograph of him on the only record album ever put out by The Fool, an English rock group - seven musicians posed, in the arrogant style of the early Stones, near an old rocket-bomb site, out in the East End, or South of the River. It is spring, and French thyme blossoms in amazing white lacework across the cape of green that now hides and softens the true shape of the old rubble. There is no way to tell which of the faces is Slothrop's: the only printed credit that might apply to him is "Harmonica, kazoo - a friend." But knowing his Tarot, we would expect to look among the Humility, among the gray and preterite souls, to look for him adrift in the hostile light of the sky, the darkness of the sea. . . .) ~ Thomas Pynchon

Americans have no idea why they have been at war in the Middle East, Asia and Africa for a decade. They don't realize that their liberties have been supplanted by a Gestapo Police State. Few understand that hard economic times are here to stay. ~ Paul Craig Roberts

The delirium and horror of the East. The dusty catastrophe of Asia. Green only on the banner of the Prophet. Nothing grows here except mustaches. ~ Joseph Brodsky

Obviously, South Africa is our most important market, but we are also gradually increasing our presence throughout East and West as well as North Africa. It is a continent with a lot of potential which we plan to tap into. ~ Jochen Zeitz

Before I opened my computer in the parking lot today, I relived one of my favorite memories. It's the one with Woody and me sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum after it's closed. We're watching people parade out of the museum in summer shorts and sandals. The trees to the south are planted in parallel lines. The water in the fountain shoots up with a mist that almost reaches the steps we sit on. We look at silver-haired ladies in red-and-white-print dresses. We separate the mice from the men, the tourists from the New Yorkers, the Upper East Siders from the West Siders. The hot-pretzel vendor sells us a wad of dough in knots with clumps of salt stuck on top. We make our usual remarks about the crazies and wonder what it would be like to live in a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking the Met. We laugh and say the same things we always say. We hold hands and keep sitting, just sitting, as the sun beings to set. It's a perfect afternoon. ~ Diane Keaton

From: The Crown of Telus
She opened her eyes, saw the crown sitting on her bedside table, and wished that it was all a dream. The crown of Trist was nothing special. It had no gemstones, no gold or silver filigree; instead it was simple, a metal circlet with four points and some inlay around a scratched and dented band.
"It's a working man's crown," she remembered her father holding the symbol of power out to her when she younger. "See the inlay? Three moons, one for each of our gods, over an oak which represents the mighty forests of the north, a shock of wheat for the Plainsmen to the south, a ship for the Gheltes to the west, and a hashap flower for the spice in the east. Nothing more. We don't need anymore."
Tears welled in her eyes. A working man's crown. Nothing fancy or bejeweled, a symbol of the power that guides the land and cares for its people.
This was going to be the first day she wore it as queen. ~ William Laws

Sitting out on the canoe tonight, watching the indigo waters of the South China Sea, I noticed the waxing moon calculating that maybe by the time it is full we'll be back in the U.S. of A. I shed a few tears for Michael again. I was hoping his ghost would materialize just to let me know there actually is a spiritual realm but no such luck. It was just me, alone. It's so bizarre. He was here and now… he's gone. That's the way it is. We are… and then, we are no more. Two or three loved ones keep our memory alive… and then, they are no more. And we all fade into that massive vapor cloud of forgotten souls. Why were we even here in the first place?
I began to stand up. That's when I saw it. It entered the night sky from the west and streaked to the east, forming a brilliant but thin arc of flame. A shooting star. A meteorite. Was that my confirmation? I would like to think so. ~ Gerald Maclennon

In fact if you look at Reagan's global war on terrorism it very quickly turned into a massive terrorist war: [by us] Central America, South Africa, the Middle East, all U.S.-backed terrorism. That's one of the reasons why it disappeared from history and why the standard line is that Bush 43 declared the war on terror. Actually he just repeated what Reagan had said 20 years earlier. ~ Noam Chomsky

We have to adopt a wider perspective, and always find common things between the people of north, east, south, and west. Conflict comes from the basis of differencs. ~ Dalai Lama

Gradually, I was getting worn down. My sense of direction had evaporated by our fourth day. When south became the opposite of east, I bought a compass, but going around with a compass only made the city seem less and less real. The buildings began to look like backdrops in a photography studio, the people walking in the streets like cardboard cutouts. ~ Haruki Murakami

I've been to Japan, I've been to China, I've been to Africa, I've been to the Middle East, I've been to Europe a little bit. I've never been to South America. ~ Colin Quinn

In any East Asian culture, you will find that women have a very tangible power within the household. This is often rejcted by non-Asian feminists who argue that it is not real power, but.. Japanese women look at the low status attributed to the domestic labor of housewives in North America and feel that this amounts to a denigration of a fundamental social role - whether it is performed by a man or a woman. ~ Sandra Buckley

Some of these Marines learned what they know on Guadalcanal, a basically useless island in the Southwest Pacific where the Empire of Nippon and the United States of America are disputing - with rifles - each other's right to build a military airbase. Early returns suggest that the Nipponese Army, during its extended tour of East Asia, has lost its edge. It would appear that raping the entire female population of Nanjing, and bayoneting helpless Filipino villagers, does not translate into actual military competence. The Nipponese Army is still trying to work out some way to kill, say, a hundred American Marines without losing, say, five hundred of its own soldiers. ~ Neal Stephenson

The basketball team was trailing by three points. I trail by four points - north, south, east, and west. I also trail by covered wagon. ~ Jarod Kintz

Mad raging sunsets poured in seafoams of cloud through unimaginable crags, with every rose tint of hope beyond, I felt just like it, brilliant and bleak beyond words. Everywhere awful ice fields and snow straws; one blade of grass jiggling in the winds of infinity, anchored to a rock. To the East, it was gray; to the north, awful; to the west, raging mad, hard iron fools wrestling in the groomian gloom; to the south, my father's mist. ~ Jack Kerouac

Activists from the Middle East to Asia to the former Soviet states have all been telling me that they suffer from increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

Be not defeated by the rain, Nor let the wind prove your better.
Succumb not to the snows of winter. Nor be bested by the heat of summer.

Be strong in body. Unfettered by desire. Not enticed to anger. Cultivate a quiet joy.
Count yourself last in everything. Put others before you.
Watch well and listen closely. Hold the learned lessons dear.

A thatch-roof house, in a meadow, nestled in a pine grove's shade.

A handful of rice, some miso, and a few vegetables to suffice for the day.

If, to the East, a child lies sick: Go forth and nurse him to health.
If, to the West, an old lady stands exhausted: Go forth, and relieve her of burden.
If, to the South, a man lies dying: Go forth with words of courage to dispel his fear.
If, to the North, an argument or fight ensues:
Go forth and beg them stop such a waste of effort and of spirit.

In times of drought, shed tears of sympathy.
In summers cold, walk in concern and empathy.

Stand aloof of the unknowing masses:
Better dismissed as useless than flattered as a "Great Man".

This is my goal, the person I strive to become. ~ Kenji Miyazawa

We must not think too unkindly even of the east wind. It is not, perhaps, a wind to be loved, even in its benignest moods; but there are seasons when I delight to feel its breath upon my cheek, though it be never advisable to throw open my bosom and take it into my heart, as I would its gentle sisters of the south and west. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace; East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease; Sing the song of great joy that the angels began, Sing the glory to God and of good-will to man! ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

Writing: such has been my crime ever since I was a small child. To this day writing remains my crime. Now, although I am out of prison, I continue to live inside a prison of another sort, one without steel bars. For the technology of oppression and might without justice has become more advanced, and the fetters imposed on mind and body have become invisible. The most dangerous shackles are the invisible ones, because they deceive people into believing they are free. This delusion is the new prison that people inhabit today, north and south, east and west...We inhabit the age of the technology of false consciousness, the technology of hiding truths behind amiable humanistic slogans that may change from one era to another...Democracy is not just freedom to criticize the government or head of state, or to hold parliamentary elections. True democracy obtains only when the people - women, men, young people, children - have the ability to change the system of industrial capitalism that has oppressed them since the earliest days of slavery: a system based on class division, patriarchy, and military might, a hierarchical system that subjugates people merely because they are born poor, or female, or dark-skinned. ~ Nawal El Saadawi

I had this funny family. At one end, they were breeding dogs in south-east London - for greyhound racing - and at the other, my uncle was living in Downing Street. And I would actually go to Downing Street, which didn't strike me as funny. I'd get on the number 15 bus. ~ Michael Moorcock