Cheng Quotes

It wasn't that Henry was less of himself in English. He was less of himself out loud. His native language was thought.

I am forever your most devoted believer.

Last‌ ‌time,‌ ‌they‌ ‌spent‌ ‌eight‌ ‌hundred‌ ‌years‌ ‌running‌ ‌towards‌ ‌each‌ ‌other.‌ ‌ This‌ ‌time,‌ ‌it‌ ‌only‌ ‌took‌ ‌an‌ ‌instant‌ ‌to‌ ‌fall‌ ‌into‌ ‌each‌ ‌other’s‌ ‌embrace.‌ ‌

If you can't be unafraid, be afraid and happy.

I take it we're friends now," Henry said. "We must be," Gansey replied. "Jane says it should be so." "It should be so," Blue agreed.

Hua Cheng answered leisurely, “To me, it’s the safest place in the world.” “You’re absolutely sure?” Hua Cheng smiled cheerfully. “If its hiding place is destroyed, then there’s no need for me to exist either. Of course I’m sure.

I promise, you will not find another person who is more sincere than me in this world.

I don’t know If you all missed me, but I didn’t think about any of you at all.

Only after having met you did I discover that it’s such a simple thing to be happy.

So how do you make your exit?" she asked. "In a puff of smoke? Or do you just vaporize?" He grinned at her. "Much as I hate to be a crushing disappointment to you, I reckon I'll just take the door.

Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted" - Sylvia Plath's epitaph (from Wu Cheng'en's novel Journey to the West aka. Monkey, translated by Arthur Waley)

You've always been the strongest. But you don't need to be strong every waking moment of every day.

What do you mean Ronan's a magical entity? Is he a demon? Because this all makes sense if so.

Hua Cheng disagreed respectfully. “You never know. I don’t care if anyone else is disappointed. But to some, the very existence of a certain person in this world is in itself hope.

Hua Cheng said quietly, "Your Highness, I understand your everything. "Your courage, your despair; your kindness, your pain; your resentment, your hate; your intelligence, your foolishness. "If I could, I would have you use me as your stepping stone, the bridge you take apart after crossing, the corpse bones you need to trample to climb up, the sinner who deserved the butchering of a million knives. But, I know you wouldn't allow it." (...) However, Hua Cheng only replied, "To die in battle for you is my greatest honour." Those words were like a fatal blow. The tears in Xie Lian's eyes could no longer be restrained, and they came pouring out. Like he was hanging on the thread of his life, he pleaded, "You said you would never leave me." However, Hua Cheng replied, "There is no banquet in this world that doesn't come to an end." Xie Lian bowed his head and buried it deep into his chest, his heart and throat in constricted agony, unable to speak. Yet soon after, he heard Hua Cheng say above him, "But, I will never leave you." Hearing this, Xie Lian's head shot up. Hua Cheng said to him, "I will come back. Your Highness, believe me.

Nothing in this world is difficult, but thinking makes it seem so. Where there is true will, there is always a way.

That person saw me at my worst", Hua Cheng said. "Then I'm very envious of that", Xie Lian replied.

Hua Cheng let out a small laugh and maintained that posture of one knee on the ground, and that remaining eye gazed at him deeply. "Your Highness, I've always watched you." (...) All of the sudden, thousands of emotions, millions of words swarmed into his head. There was gratefulness, there was shame, there was heartache, there was wild joy, but above all else, there was incurable love.

I wanted to protect you, but I'm starting to think that the best thing you can do for people is teach them how to protect themselves. Every girl needs to be at least a little dangerous.

There's no banquet in this world that doesn't come to an end.

Xie lian smiled wistfully. "San Lang, things aren't always that absolute. Sometimes, it's not up to you to decide if the path is easy to walk." Hua Cheng said softly, "I might not be able to decide whether the path is easy or not; but whether I tread the path is entirely up to me.

So it’s your home,” Xie Lian commented. “Residence,” Hua Cheng corrected. “Not a home.” “Is there a difference?” Xie Lian asked. “Of course,” Hua Cheng replied. “A home has family. A place where someone lives alone is not a home.

You're so insincere," Xie Lian said. Hua Cheng laughed. "I promise, you will not find another person more sincere than me in this world.

Leaves,” Ronan Lynch’s voice said, full of intention. “Dust,” Adam Parrish said. “Wind,” Blue Sargent said. “Shit,” Henry Cheng added.

Watching your beloved be trampled and ridiculed with your own eyes and being unable to do a thing about it. You understand that you are nothing, that you can do nothing. That's the worst suffering in the world.

Hua Cheng quietly sighed, extended his arms, and once again folded him into his embrace. "Your Highness, I've always watched you." This was the second time he had said this, but his voice was softer than before. Xie Lian clutched the red robes at his chest, asking, his mind blank, "I know, I know. But... what should I do now?" Hua Cheng's long and slender fingers gently combed through Xie Lian's mussed hair. "Then, Your Highness, do you know why I refuse to leave this world?" Xie Lian couldn't understand why Hua Cheng could still be so calm at a time like this, he was panicking so hard he was trembling. But, while feeling lost, he still simple-mindedly asked, "Why?" Hua Cheng replied quietly, "Because I have a beloved who is still in this world." Hearing this, Xie Lian was slightly stunned. He seemed to have heard this somewhere before. Hua Cheng continued, "My beloved is a brave, noble, and gracious special someone. He's saved my life; I've looked up to him ever since I was young. But, I wanted to catch up to him more, and become and even stronger person for him. Although he might not remember me well. We never really talked. I want to protect him." He gazed at Xie Lian. "If your dream is to save the common people, then my dream is only you." "..." Relying on his memory, Xie Lian asked with a trembling voice, "But... you won't... be able to rest in peace... like this...?" Hua Cheng answered, "I pray to never rest in peace.

If I like something, then my heart will not have room for any other, and I’ll always treasure it. A thousand times, a million times, no matter how many years, this will not change. This poem is the same.

Obviously, the kind that belongs to him.” Hua Cheng reached out and lifted Xie Lian’s chin. “His temper is certainly nice, but my temper is bad. No one shall touch what I love except for me.

Hua Cheng said woefully, “Gege, although I’m happy you’re so happy, but, is it really that funny?” Xie Lian hugged his belly. “Of course! Only after having met you did I rediscover that it’s such a simple thing to be happy, hahaha…

If your dream is to save the common people, then my dream is only you.

Jiang Cheng, “If I can’t seek revenge no matter if I’m dead or alive, then what’s the difference between the two?

She's around here somewhere. Check your pockets. She could be there. Sometimes she falls into these cracks between the floorboards.

knowledge is better than ignorance, and it’s better to find out and embrace the truth even if that truth might not feel good.

She remembered Grace telling her about Lorcan's evasiveness when she'd first joined the Noctourne-his ability to speak without saying anything, to talk in riddles. He's a conundrum, thought Cheng Li. A walking, talking conundrum

...if you're only brave when you're happy then it's not bravery

Xie Lian had buried his face in his back, and also didn’t speak. Though nothing was said, it was enough. He heard Hua Cheng’s staggering voice coming from above. “...Your Highness. You really…will be the death of me.

A team of horses cannot overtake a word that has left the mouth.

I promise, you won’t find another person more sincere than me in this world,” Hua Cheng replied.

But... you won't... be able to rest in peace like this?" Hua Cheng answered, "I pray to never rest in peace.

Hua Cheng would never help or protect anyone aside from Xie Lian,

What could he say? That, back then, I wasn't caught by the Wen Sect because I wanted to go back to Lotus Pier to retrieve my parents' corpses. That, at the town we passed on our way, when you were buying food, a group of Wen Sect cultivators caught up. That, I discovered them early and left where I sat, hiding at the corner of the street and didn't get caught, but they were patrolling the streets and would soon run into you outside. That this was why I ran out and distracted them. But just like how the past Wei Wuxian couldn't tell him the truth of giving him his golden core, the current Jiang Cheng wasn't able to say anything either.

Don't start something that you cannot finish.

and Gansey, hearing the longing in her voice like he was being undone, like his own feelings were being unbearably mirrored. I can't come? Gansey asked. Yes, you can meet us there in a fancy plane, Henry said. Don't be fooled by his nice hair, Blue interjected, Gansey would hike. And warmth filled the empty caverns in Gansey's heart. He felt known.

Most people give up on what they want. They’ll come across the first little obstacle and they’ll give up, and then they’ll try to tear down the people they see doing what they felt like they couldn’t.

In a way, mathematics is like an emotion, which can’t ever be described precisely in words—it’s something that happens inside an individual. What

If a man has been your teacher for a day, you should treat him as your father for the rest of his life.

With passions stilled and one's nature firm, all destinies are in harmony; When the full moon of contemplation is reached you will be pure.

I don’t know if you all missed me, but I haven’t thought about any of you at all.” “…” There were indeed many heavenly officials in the heavens who secretly thought about him everyday, but hearing that Hua Cheng didn’t think about them at all, they all chanted heavenly blessings: thank you thank you thank you please continue to never think of us.

A sanctuary is a place where the door only locks from the inside

After a while, San Lang said softly, “Something like saving the world, it really doesn’t matter how you do it. But, although brave, it’s foolish.” “Yeah,” Xie Lian agreed. Hua Cheng continued, “Although foolish, it’s brave.

Cheng Xin now recalled the strange feeling she had experienced each time she had looked at Van Gogh’s painting. Everything else in the painting—the trees that seemed to be on fire, and the village and mountains at night—showed perspective and depth, but the starry sky above had no three-dimensionality at all, like a painting hanging in space. Because the starry night was two-dimensional. How could Van Gogh have painted such a thing in 1889? Did he, having suffered a second breakdown, truly leap across five centuries

Justice? What is justice? It's a mere word. It's an abstract word with no universal meaning. To different classes of people, justice means different things.

Wei WuXian! I haven’t seen anyone as shameless as you!

there is a poem scratched onto the walls of my throat no one has heard it but it is there

Hua Cheng raised his brows. “Mmm, that’s right. Virtuous and beautiful. A real noble, gracious special someone who I’ve liked ever since I was young. I had a crush for many years and pursued it nonstop until I managed to win my special someone over.

Doesn’t this say they all died by suicide?” Xie Lian said. “Before I would make my move, I’d send messengers to greet them first, and they’d end themselves,” Hua Cheng replied. “So, perhaps that doesn’t count as my kill?

After Supper the Master dismissed all except Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Sha the Monk. He took them out with him and said, "Look at that wonderful moolight. It makes me long for the time when I can return home.

If you want to have a future, don't do anything with no future in it.

We all saw it, and he did the same thing we all did - we pretended it was none of our business and that it would go away on its own. We told ourselves we were just seeing a tiny piece of Agnes's life. And if you only get a small piece of something, it's much easier to convince yourself it's better when you're not around, and then choose to ignore it.

And on the way, we'll have plenty of time to talk or not talk about whatever's on your mind

Large portraits of Mao on wooden boards several feet high stood at main street corners. Painted to make the old man look extremely youthful, healthy, and fat (a sign of well-being in China), these pictures provided a mocking contrast to the thin, pale-faced pedestrians walking listlessly below them.

It's always best to look ahead and not backwards. Possessions are not important. Think of those beautiful porcelain pieces I had. Before they came to me, they had all passed through the hands of many people, surviving wars and natural disasters. I got them only because someone else lost them. While I had them, I enjoyed them; now some other people will enjoy them. Life itself is transitory. Possessions are not important.

The earth is black in front of the cliff, and no orchids grow. Creepers crawl in the brown mud by the path. Where did the birds of yesterday fly? To what other mountain did the animals go? Leopards and pythons dislike this ruined spot; Cranes and snakes avoid the desolation. My criminal thoughts of those days past Brought on the disaster of today.

I asked her why doesn't she buy a nicer car and she said she doesn't need nice things, she just needs her own things, and I respect that" -Alex

Hero is he alone who vies with powers supreme!

Look at this,' Henry called from a few yards away. His voice was theatrically shocked. 'I have discovered that, at some point, this side door was broken into by a teenage Korean vandal.

So they were at an impasse. "Gansey boy! DICK." Ronan whirled and walked backward to face the shouter. He spread his arms wide. "Not now, Cheng. The king's a little busy." "I wasn't talking to you, Lynch. I need someone with a soul." The light that glinted off Ronan's snarl caught Gansey's eye, bringing him back to the present.

There's a part of it (love) that's, like, letting go. Like a sacrifice but in a good way. You trade a part of yourself for something that's even bigger than you, and it feels good but weird at the same time. It's totally worth it, though" -Terra

Love is taking care of oneself by freeing one's mind of worries and conducting one self with propriety.

...it's really more intelligent to be able to simplify things than to complicate them. Even if some people think it makes you look stupid.

So I'm deputizing for the deputy, am I?, asked Connor with a grin.

What you must do," said Monkey, "is lure the monster from its hiding place, but be certain it is a fight you can survive.

You will be able to stop hurting people when you stop hurting yourself.

I supposed the Red Guards had enjoyed themselves. Is it not true that we all possess some destructive tendencies in our nature? The veneer of civilization is very thin. Underneath lurks the animal in each of us. If I were young and had had a working class background, if I had been brought up to worship Mao and taught to believe him infalliable, would I not have behaved exactly as the Red Guards had done?

Oh, sure," Gansey said, still cold and annoyed. "God forbid young men display their principles with futile but public protests when they could be skipping school and judging other students from the backseat of a motor vehicle." "Principles? Henry Cheng's principles are all about getting larger font in the school newsletter," Ronan said. He did a vaguely offensive version of Henry's voice: "Serif? Sans serif? More bold, less italics.

All kinds of mysterious phenomena exist in this world, but answers to most of them have come with advances in scientific knowledge. Love is the sole holdout-nothing can explain it. A Chinese writer by the name of Ah Cheng wrote that love is just a chemical reaction, an unconventional point of view that seemed quite fresh at the time. But if love can be controlled and initiated by means of chemistry, then novelists would be out of a job. So while he may have had his finger on the truth, I'll remain a member of the loyal opposition.

Henry shuffled the jewelled insect back out of his pocket. It amber heart warmed light through the pit again. “Back in the lab, of course, as father dear tries to copy it with nonmagical parts. My mother told me to keep this one to remind me of what I am.” “And what is that?” The bee illuminated both itself and Henry: its translucent wings, Henry’s wickedly cut eyebrows. “Something more.

This is a test of mettle. That's the Ganseylike part." Gansey knew that Henry was right by the zing of feeling in his heart. It was very similar to the sensation he'd felt at the toga party. That feeling of being known. Not in a superficial way, but in something deeper and truer. He asked, "What is my prize if I pass?" "What is ever any prize of a test of mettle? The prize is your honor, Mr. Gansey." Doubly known. Triply known. Gansey wasn't precisely sure how to cope with being so accurately pegged by a person who was, after all, only a recent acquaintance.

To have spent my life holding my hands in tightly hidden fists. To try to understand what it would mean now to hold them open. I have always felt ashamed at being witnessed in the act of wanting something I could not have

Sometimes the clouds inside my head get big and gray and swirly and then I hurricane through my eyes. Except I don’t literally hurricane through my eyes—I don’t actually have a weather system in my head.

Maybe if you sleep where another person sleeps and do what that person does, then eventually you’ll start turning into that person.

I said, Of course I'm full of questions, how can I find out the truth about stuff if I do't ask questions, DUH!" -Alex

Xie Lian whipped his head over, and a biting chill flashed before his face. He straightened and stated solemnly: “You ask who I am? LISTEN WELL! ——I, AM THE EMINENT HIGHNESS THE CROWN PRINCE! You riotous radicals, BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!” His voice boomed like thunder in clear skies. There were actually a few who almost dropped to their knees, and didn’t snap out of it until their companions pulled them up. “What are you doing? Are you actually kneeling?” “Th-that’s weird, I did it before I realized it…” Xie Lian proclaimed sharply: “I, AM OVER EIGHT HUNDRED. OLDER THAN ALL OF YOU COMBINED. I’VE CROSSED MORE BRIDGES THAN ALL THE ROADS YOU’VE WALKED. “I, POSSESS SHRINES AND TEMPLES ACROSS THIS LAND; MY DEVOTEES AND WORSHIPPERS ARE SPREAD TO ALL FOUR SEAS. IF YOU DON’T KNOW MY NAME, IT’S BECAUSE YOU ARE IGNORANT AND UNLEARNED OF THE WORLD! “I, DO NOT WORSHIP GODS. “I, AM GOD!” When the mob heard this speech, that was so shameless yet spoken with an incomparably impressive air, they were all stunned, and dropped their jaws. “…HUH???” Xie Lian made up all that nonsense because he was waiting for this very moment. He flung that plate in his hand, and all those little white meatballs shot out through the air like iron pellets, scattering in all directions. Without any misses, they were hurled right into the open mouths of all those people in shock. Then he wiped away his sweat. “Will everyone please forget everything I just said? I’m actually only just a scrap collector!

The boatman then gently guided the raft across. They saw a dead body floating. At the sight of this, the Master was greatly frightened. But Sun smiled and said, "Master do not be alarmed! That corpse is none other than your own." Zhu Bajie said, "It is you, it is you!" Sha the Monk clapped his hands, and also said, "It is you, it is you!" The boatman also remarked "It was yours, I congratulate you." The three pilgrims congratulated him, and they quietly crossed over the Could Ferry in safety. The Master's shape was changed, and he jumped ashore on the other side with a very light body.

My own outlook and my values had been formed long ago. I did not believe in dividing people into rigid classes, and I did not believe in class struggle as a means to promote progress. I believed that to rebuild after so many years of war, China needed a peaceful enviroment and the unity of all sections of society, not perpetual revolution.

When you're a child trapped in a situation of physical or psychological deprivation, you learn shame as an efficient, elegant mechanism of survival: shame simultaneously shields you from the reality that danger is our of your control (since the problem is not that you're unloved and deprived; it's that you're Bad) and prevents you from doing or saying anything challenging that might provoke a threat.

That's the difference between love and hunger," she says. "Hunger is a story you gt stuck in. Love's the story that takes you somewhere new.

Bad experience is more bearable when you are not the only sufferer.

Sometimes to be somebody else, you have to be nobody first

The youth shattered into thousands of silver butterflies, scattering into a breeze of silver twinkling stars.

Speaking of which, I also met a teenager that could command silver butterflies around on Mount Yu Jun. Does anyone know who that was?” The lively, bustling chaotic spirit communication array suddenly fell silent the moment those words were out. This kind of reaction, Xie Lian had seen it coming and so he just waited patiently. After a while, Ling Wen finally asked, “Your Highness Crown Prince, what did you just say?” Mu Qing coldly answered for him, “He just said, he met Hua Cheng.” Finally obtaining the name of that red-clothed young man, Xie Lian was ineffably in a good mood. He smiled and said, “So his name is Hua Cheng? Hm, this name suits him quite well.

Gege, want to get married?” “...” Xie Lian was struck dumb. “...Huh?” Such an intent gaze, such words; they were in such close quarters with nowhere to run. Colors exploded in Xie Lian's vision, and his mind went completely blank. His entire body was frozen, stiffer than a corpse. Seeing his reaction, Hua Cheng withdrew his arm and let out a snicker. “It's a joke. Did I shock gege?” “...” Xie Lian only snapped out of it with concerted effort. “...You're too much. How can you joke about something like that?” It wasn't just shock. He was so rattled by that question that his heart had almost stopped. And though he did not quite understand why, he also felt a trace of hurt. “My bad,” Hua Cheng laughed.

Be grateful always for everything and everyone at every moment.

One of the most ugly aspects of life in Communist China during the Mao Zedong era was the Party’s demand that people inform on each other routinely and denounce each other during political campaigns. This practice had a profoundly destructive effect on human relationships. Husbands and wives became guarded with each other, and parents were alienated from their children. The practice inhibited all forms of human contact, so that people no longer wanted to have friends. It also encouraged secretiveness and hypocrisy. To protect himself, a man had to keep his thoughts to himself. When he was compelled to speak, often lying was the only way to protect himself and his family.

Models of justice that centre punishment do not prevent abuse but only react to it, and they don't offer a pathway toward healing for either perpetrators or survivors. Nor do they acknowledge the dual reality that a great many perpetrators are themselves survivors.

Little cocoon apartment, I love how you rattle and shake in the wind. You are mine like nothing has ever been before. Someday you'll tear open, and I'll fly out with the wings I have grown inside you. Still shimmering. Still wet.

You scour these Chinatowns of the mind, translating them like sutras Xuan Zhang fetched from India, testing ways return might be possible against these homesick inventions, trace the traveller's alien steps across borders, and in between discover how transit has a way of lasting, the way these Chinatowns grew out of not knowing whether to return or to stay, and then became home.

Of course, I’ve only brought up two examples. Other universal laws of physics have been used as weapons as well, though we don’t know all of them. It’s very possible that every law of physics has been weaponized. It’s possible that in some parts of the universe, even … Forget it, I don’t even believe that.” “What were you going to say?” “The foundation of mathematics.” Cheng Xin tried to imagine it, but it was simply impossible. “That’s … madness.” Then she asked, “Will the universe turn into a war ruin? Or, maybe it’s more accurate to ask: Will the laws of physics turn into war ruins?” “Maybe they already are.… The physicists and cosmologists of the new world are focused on trying to recover the original appearance of the universe before the wars more than ten billion years ago. They’ve already constructed a fairly clear theoretical model describing the pre-war universe. That was a really lovely time, when the universe itself was a Garden of Eden. Of course, the beauty could only be described mathematically. We can’t picture it: Our brains don’t have enough dimensions.” Cheng Xin thought back to the conversation with the Ring again. Did you build this four-dimensional fragment? You told me that you came from the sea. Did you build the sea? “You are saying that the universe of the Edenic Age was four-dimensional, and that the speed of light was much higher?” “No, not at all. The universe of the Edenic Age was ten-dimensional. The speed of light back then wasn’t only much higher—rather, it was close to infinity. Light back then was capable of action at a distance, and could go from one end of the cosmos to the other within a Planck time.… If you had been to four-dimensional space, you would have some vague hint of how beautiful that ten-dimensional Garden must have been.” “You’re saying—” “I’m not saying anything.” Yifan seemed to have awakened from a dream. “We’ve only seen small hints; everything else is just guessing. You should treat it as a guess, just a dark myth we’ve made up.” But Cheng Xin continued to follow the course of the discussion taken so far. “—that during the wars after the Edenic Age, one dimension after another was imprisoned from the macroscopic into the microscopic, and the speed of light was reduced again and again.…” “As I said, I’m not saying anything, just guessing.” Yifan’s voice grew softer. “But no one knows if the truth is even darker than our guesses.… We are certain of only one thing: The universe is dying.” The

Equally important was the fact that the interpretation provided the model for how Tianming had hidden his message in the three stories. He employed two basic methods: dual-layer metaphors and two-dimensional metaphors. The dual-layer metaphors in the stories did not directly point to the real meaning, but to something far simpler. The tenor of this first metaphor became the vehicle for a second metaphor, which pointed to the real intelligence. In the current example, the princess’s boat, the He’ershingenmosiken soap, and the Glutton’s Sea formed a metaphor for a paper boat driven by soap. The paper boat, in turn, pointed to curvature propulsion. Previous attempts at decipherment had failed largely due to people’s habitual belief that the stories only involved a single layer of metaphors to hide the real message. The two-dimensional metaphors were a technique used to resolve the ambiguities introduced by literary devices employed in conveying strategic intelligence. After a dual-layer metaphor, a single-layer supporting metaphor was added to confirm the meaning of the dual-layer metaphor. In the current example, the curved snow-wave paper and the ironing required to flatten it served as a metaphor for curved space, confirming the interpretation of the soap-driven boat. If one viewed the stories as a two-dimensional plane, the dual-layer metaphor only provided one coordinate; the supporting single-layer metaphor provided a second coordinate that fixed the interpretation on the plane. Thus, this single-layer metaphor was also called the bearing coordinate. Viewed by itself, the bearing coordinate seemed meaningless, but once combined with the dual-layer metaphor, it resolved the inherent ambiguities in literary language. “A subtle and sophisticated system,” a PIA specialist said admiringly. All the committee members congratulated Cheng Xin and AA. AA, who had always been looked down on, saw her status greatly elevated among the committee members. Cheng

I was very fond of strange stories when I was a child. In my village-school days, I used to buy stealthily popular novels and historical recitals. Fearing that my father and my teacher might punish me for this and rob me of these treasures, I carefully hid them in secret places where I could enjoy them unmolested. As I grew older, my love for strange stories became even stronger, and I learned of things stranger than what I had read in my childhood. When I was in my thirties, my memory was full of these stories accumulated through years of eager seeking. l have always admired such writers of the T'ang Dynasty as Tuan Ch'eng-shih [author of the Yu-yang tsa-tsu] and Niu Sheng [author of the Hsuan-kuai lu]. Who wrote short stories so excellent in portrayal of men and description of things. I often had the ambition to write a book (of stories) which might be compared with theirs. But I was too lazy to write, and as my laziness persisted, I gradually forgot most of the stories which I had learned. Now only these few stories, less than a score, have survived and have so successfully battled against my laziness that they are at last written down. Hence this Book of Monsters. I have sometimes laughingly said to myself that it is not I who have found these ghosts and monsters, but they, the monstrosities themselves, which have found me! ... Although my book is called a book or monsters, it is not confined to them: it also records the strange things of the human world and sometimes conveys a little bit of moral lesson.