Asian Literature Quotes

“All of these things, however, were but like methadone to a heroin addict. They only masked the withdrawal pains without satisfying the addiction. So even as they tried truly to break up many times, they always found their way back to each other.”
― L. M. Weeks, Bottled Lightning

“Kumakura’s use of the word sensei, reserved for professionals, including doctors and lawyers, but which Japanese doctors tried to reserve to themselves, was tacit acknowledgment that Kumakura knew the hierarchy had changed.”
― L. M. Weeks, Bottled Lightning

“Cars slowed to a crawl as drivers rubber-necked to watch her ride by. She was a glamorous hazard to traffic safety.”
― L. M. Weeks, Bottled Lightning

“What matters isn't what people say but what you like and find joy in. I hope you focus less on how you look to other people and more on fulfilling your true desires.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“You shouldn’t ask the girl blessed by Death whom she’ll die for. You should ask her whom she’ll kill for.”
― Molly X. Chang, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods

“Xuan and I had decided to take a trip together in honor of our one-thousand-day anniversary. We ate Korean barbecue, shared a decadent cake, and then drove three and a half hours to Yosemite. I’d never heard of such an occasion. But in Seoul, where Ji-Hoon was born and raised, there was almost a monthly holiday devoted to romance. We wore similar out- fits, which Xuan said was common for couples in Asian countries. Three years was a big deal, especially when we didn’t know how many more we’d have.”
― Kayla Cunningham, Fated to Love You

“聪明一世，糊涂一时. Intelligent and cautious for a lifetime, it takes a second of stupidity to unravel it all.”
― Molly X. Chang, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods

“Fear increases when it's something that you keep to yourself. Instead of suffering alone, it can often be good to share it with someone else.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“No lonelier feeling in the world than having people stare at you all the time, but nobody truly seeing you.”
― Katie Zhao, How We Fall Apart

“It was also revealed that the reason I am cruel to others is because I have low-self-esteem. Because I don’t love myself, I am unable to understand those who do love me in spite of it all, and so I test them. “You love me even when I do this? Or this? Or this?” Even when the other person forgives me, I am unable to understand their forgiveness, and when they give up on me, I torture and console myself with the “fact” that no one could ever love me. That goddamn self-esteem. [...] Looking more closely at myself, there are parts that I've improved on. I still remain someone who is unable to love herself. But as I had that thought, I had another: light and darkness are part of the same thing. Happiness and unhappiness alternate throughout life, as in a dance. So as long as I keep going and don’t give up, surely I will keep having moments of tears and laughter.

This book, therefore, ends not with answers but with a wish. I want to love and be loved. I want to find a way where I don’t hurt myself. I want to live a life where I say things are good more than things are bad. I want to keep failing and discovering new and better directions. I want to enjoy the tides of feeling in me as the rhythms of life. I want to be the kind of person who can walk inside the vast darkness and find the one fragment of sunlight I can linger in for a long time.
Some day, I will.”
― Baek Se-hee, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki

“To love was a privilege not afforded to those of us born in these trying times when survival was never guaranteed.
We were products of our surroundings, of our upbringings.”
― Molly X. Chang, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods

“Asya' denince aklınıza ne geliyor? Çekik gözler? "Çan çin çon" sözü? Yoksulluk? Yoksa uyanan bir dev mi? Bu kitap, size Asya'da çok daha fazlasının olduğunu gösterecek.Avrupalılardan daha önce, Amerika'yı ilk keşfeden Türk kökenli Çinli amiral Zheng He ile 1421'de uzun bir deniz yolculuğuna çıkacak; oradan 2500 yıl önce Çinli bilge Sun Tzu tarafından yazılmış ilk strateji kitabının sayfalarında gezinecek, ama sonra bu bilgelik ve felsefe ülkesinin bugünkü toplumsal çöküşüne tanık olacağız. Don Kişot'tan önce bir Japonyalı kadın yazar tarafından yazılmış ilk romanı birlikte okuyacak, 'Japon mucizesi' üstüne düşüneceğiz. Japonya'da aşırı çalıştırılmaktan ölümleri, Hindistan'da kast düzenini, Kuzey Kore-Güney Kore sorununu, yorucu çözümlemelere girmeden, hepimizin okuyabileceği akıcılıkta gözden geçireceğiz. Siyam ikizlerinin öyküsünü öğrenip yine Siyam'dan bir köy romancısını tanıyacağız.Ve en sonunda, "Antarktika Tellioğullarınındır!" deyip Antarktika üstüne sürmekte olan paylaşım savaşını ele alacağız.
Ve her bir yazıdan sonra, dinlenmek, sanatın o hoşduyusuna kapılmak için Asya'dan çeşitli şiirler okuyacağız: "Ekmek parası mı kazanayım şiir mi yazayım?" diyecek Nepalli bir şair... İşgal dönemi Koresi'nden bir şair, "çalınmış tarlalara da gelir mi bahar?" diye soracak ülkesini düşünerek... "Benim ülkem cennet değildir" diyecek Filipinli bir şair, ülkesindeki yoksunluklara tanık olmamış turistlere... Ve Jose Rizal, bağımsız düşüncenin bu yiğit oğlu, son hoşçakalıyla veda edecek hepimize ve ardından bir şair "henüz değil Rizal henüz değil" diyecek...Yorucu olmayan ama uzun bir yolculuğa çıkaracak sizi bu kitap ve bittiğinde, kitabı okumadan önce Asya'ya ilişkin ne kadar az şey bildiğinizi şaşırarak farkedeceksiniz...”
― Ulaş Başar Gezgin, Asya Yazıları

“- Há mais de dez mil anos que os gatos e os seres humanos são
companheiros. E o que se percebe quando se vive com um gato há
muito tempo é que podemos pensar que somos donos deles, mas
não é assim que as coisas são. Eles simplesmente dão-nos o prazer
de desfrutarmos da sua companhia.”
― Genki Kawamura, If Cats Disappeared from the World

“Além disso, os seres humanos insistem em manter os gatos como animais de estimação, apesar da nossa angústia em relação à mortalidade, mesmo sabendo que os gatos morrerão muito antes de nós, causando aos donos uma dor incalculável.
(...)
Se olharmos bem para a questão, a morte de um gato não é muito diferente da morte de um ser humano.”
― Genki Kawamura, If Cats Disappeared from the World

“Há um limite para quão bem nos conhecemos a nós próprios. Não sabemos a impressão que causamos nos outros, não temos como conhecer o nosso próprio futuro e não podemos saber como será a nossa própria morte. E é por isso que precisamos dos gatos. É exatamente como disse a minha mãe: os gatos não precisam de nós; são os seres humanos que precisam dos gatos.”
― Genki Kawamura, If Cats Disappeared from the World

“Em vez de pensarmos na família como algo que existe, temos de pensar nela como algo que se constrói. Nós «fazemos» a família.”
― Genki Kawamura, If Cats Disappeared from the World

“Há uma razão para que as coisas existam neste mundo. E não há nenhuma razão suficientemente boa para as eliminar.”
― Genki Kawamura, If Cats Disappeared from the World

“Mozasu era convinto che la vita fosse più simile al pachinko, nel quale anche il caso aveva un ruolo importante.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“She said that was the only way for us to live, to be like poets.”
― Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste

“Our unspeakable losses can be captured through the silence built into the lyric fragment.”
― Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

“白发送黑发, 不孝之道. Letting the white hair bury the black hair was unfilial to the highest degree.”
― Molly X. Chang, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods

“Hitler is associated with the word evil because he wanted to create a new colony or space in Europe, rather than Africa and Asia.”
― Mwanandeke Kindembo

“Think of it as a little rest in the long journey of your life. This is your harbor. And your boat is just dropping anchor here for a little while. And after you're well rested, you can set sail again.”
― Satoshi Yagisawa, Maki Hojyo in ASAKUSA: Maki Hojyo digital photo book

“Remember what Zeami said: The true legacy lies not in the name, but in the teaching”
― Hisashi Kashiwai, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes

“He's saying that an artistic lineage doesn't always have to be passed on by blood”
― Hisashi Kashiwai, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes

“What counts is passing on your art, in its every detail, to whoever picks up the baton. Something like that, anyway”
― Hisashi Kashiwai, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes

“Seriously? What do I look like? A dog?”
― Sōsuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved the Library

“- Ludzkie wspomnienia zapisywane są na najróżniejsze sposoby. Zapamiętujemy książki takimi, jak je ostatnio widzieliśmy, a nowe wspomnienia tworzą nowe książki. Mogą się w nich pojawiać listy czy obrazki. Wspomnienia dzieci, które nie znają jeszcze liter, zachowywane są właśnie jako obrazki, ale także wspomnienia osób dorosłych mogą przybierać taką formę. Na przykład kiedy stajemy przed bardzo trudnymi momentami w życiu albo kiedy nie znajdujemy w sobie słów, którymi można daną sytuację opisać, albo kiedy próbujemy oddać za ich pomocą jakieś abstrakcyjne pomysły, szkice pomysłów.”
― Song Yu-jeong

“Ponoć gdy zbliża się czyjś koniec, to jest zmysłem pozostającym z nim najdłużej. Kiedy więc ktoś umiera, powinno się szepnąć tej osobie do ucha: '' Kocham Cię '', tak by była to ostatnia rzecz, jaką usłyszy.”
― Song Yu-jeong, Księgarnia wspomnień

“A newspaper article predicted that we would no longer see any mountain peaks, seas, or adult bodies that were whole in twenty years. We had grown accustomed to these horrifying speculations, the same way we read about faraway countries with long and foreign-sounding names wrecked by war, earthquakes, storms, and massacres. There would be a moment when we fell into wordless grief, but with the turn of a page, we would get inundated by job and real-estate listings and restaurant advertisements again. People weren’t indifferent; it was just that, for those of us who lived here, the future always felt so surreal.”
― Hon Lai Chu