Dream Of The Red Chamber Quotes

The cunning waste their pains; The wise men vex their brains; But the simpleton, who seeks no gains, With belly full, he wanders free As drifting boat upon the sea.

Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true; Real becomes not-real where the unreal's real.

The problem with 'the crown jewel of Chinese literature' [Dream of the Red Chamber] is that it has two thousand pages and an equal number of characters, and the hero is an effeminate ass who should have either been spanked or decapitated, both ends being equally objectionable.

Any doctor will do in an emergency.

There’s a reason why the story of the ghetto should never come with a photo. The Third World slum is a nightmare that defies beliefs or facts, even the ones staring right at you. A vision of hell that twists and turns on itself and grooves to its own soundtrack. Normal rules do not apply here. Imagination then, dream, fantasy. You visit a ghetto, particularly a ghetto in West Kingston, and it immediately leaves the real to become this sort of grotesque, something out of Dante or the infernal painting of Hieronymus Bosch. It’s a rusty red chamber of hell that cannot be described so I will not try to describe it. It cannot be photographed because some parts of West Kingston, such as Rema, are in the grip of such bleak and unremitting repulsiveness that the inherent beauty of the photographic process will lie to you about just how ugly it really is.

Here, you carry these. I may need my hands free. Why the hell are we taking ‘The Dream of the Red Chamber?’ Light reading, if we get stuck on the subway? No, in case we get stopped by some of Qing Song’s minions who can’t read Chinese. Oh. Right. Hey, that’s not a bad thought. Though if we’re going to be throwing them away anyhow, why not take ‘The Investiture of the Gods’... Because I like ‘The Investiture of the Gods’ and I don’t like ‘The Dream of the Red Chamber’.

莫失莫忘，仙寿恒昌。不离不弃，芳龄永继。

when they quietly dispersed, leaving only the four waiting maids: Xiren, Meiren, Qingwen, and Sheyue to keep him company.

Spring returns to my lonely chamber, Once more spring grass is lush and green. Some red plum blossoms are open, Others have yet to bloom. I grind tea bricks into fine jade powder In a pot carved with azure clouds, Still under the spell of the morning's dream, Till all of a sudden I am woken By a jug of spring. Flower shadows press at the double gate, Pale moonlight silvers the translucent curtains. A beautiful evening! Three times in two years We've missed the spring. Come back without further ado And let's enjoy our fill of this spring!

No es que esté arrepentida de nada, simplemente, si hubiera sabido cómo terminarían las cosas habría actuado de otra manera; pero cometí la necedad de pensar que siempre estaríamos juntos

On perusal of these two sentences, albeit the room was sumptuous and beautifully laid out, he would on no account remain in it. “Let us go at once,” he hastened to observe, “let us go at once.

Having made an utter failure of my life, I found myself one day in the midst of my poverty and wretchedness, thinking about the female companions of my youth. As I went over them one by one, examining them and comparing them in my mind's eye, it suddenly came over me that those slips of girls - which is all they were then - were in every way, both morally and intellectually, superior to the 'grave and mustachioed signior' I am now supposed to have become.

most common people oft he market-place much prefer light literature to improving books. The problem is, that so many romances contain slanderous anecdotes about sovereigns and ministers or cast aspersions upon man’s wives and daughters so that they are packed with sex and violence. Even worse are those writers of the breeze-and-moonlight school, who corrupt the young with pornography and filth. As for books of the beauty-and-talented-scholar type, a thousand are written to a single pattern and none escapes bordering on indecency. They are filled with allusions to handsome, talented young men and beautiful, refined girls in history; but in order to insert a couple of his own love poems, the author invents stereotyped heroes and heroines with the inevitable low character to make trouble between them like a clown in a play, and makes even the slave girls talk pedantic nonsense. So all these novels are full of contradictions and absurdly unnatural.

They found Xiang-yun where the maid had said, on a large stone bench in a hidden corner of the rockery, dead to the world. She was covered all over from head to foot with crimson petals from the peony bushes which grew about; the fan which had slipped from her hand and lay on the found beside her was half buried in petals; and heaped up peony petals wrapped in a silk handkerchief made an improvised pillow for her head. Over and around this petalled monstrosity a convocation of bees and butterflies was hovering distractedly.

Promethea has awakened in me dreams extinguished for thousands of years; sometimes one catches on fire even through so many icy layers. Promethea has rekindled dreams of fire in me, dreams of abysses, they are terribly dangerous dreams: as long as they are dreams alone, as long as one dreams alone, one can fool around with dreaming, because afterward one forgets. But now, ever since I learned how Promethea brings the fire of all dreams up into reality, how she climbs back up through the shaft of the Red Cows, bearing the first fire, how she crosses the Chamber of the Mares, how she goes through every epoch of existence reawakening along the walls memories of times so fragile and so inflammable, and comes out in 1982 still carrying in her hands the primitive spark, I feel myself wavering between exultation and terror. Formerly, I too sucked satiny coals. Once I burned my tongue. (That only happens if someone makes you lose faith.) Ever since I have no longer dared suck real fire; for a long time I lived on electricity. But I have never forgotten the fiery taste of eternity. I just was sure that I could live with my tongue extinguished until the end of my days. I was not even tempted. I was calm. I had firm definitions. I called happiness the absence of unhappiness. I wrote in ink and I dedicated my dreams to the Moons.

If you could feel even half the pain I’ve endured, you wouldn’t believe that,” she said, her voice raw. “I’ve seen snow, red with a little girl’s blood. Royal chambers scorched to ash and a dead mother surrounded by men who’d harmed her in unspeakable ways. I’ve seen babies smothered by fathers because they cannot afford to feed them; children instructed to fight when they aren’t strong enough to lift a sword.” She took a step closer to him. “I’ve seen Death, Hunter Northridge. And Death is not merciful.” “Yet you do not fear it.” It was a statement. Sable shook her head. “No,” she confirmed. “I do not.” “You only fear what it might do to the ones you love.

The two girls descended the slope of the little mountain. A few steps round a turn in the pathway which skirted the foot of it took them to the pavilion. Near the water's edge, linking it with Lotus Pavilion farther along the shore, was a bamboo railing. The two old women who were on night watch in it, little imagining that an overspill from the hilltop party would come their way, had long since put their light out and gone to sleep. Dai-yu and Xiang-yun laughed when they saw that the pavilion was in darkness. "They've gone to sleep. Never mind. All the better. Let's sit outside here on the covered verandah and look at the moonlight on the water." They found a couple of drum shaped bamboo stools to sit down on. A great white moon in the water reflected the great white moon above, competing with it in brightness. The girls felt like mermaids sitting in a shining crystal palace beneath the sea. A little wind that brushed over the surface of the water making tiny ripples seemed to cleanse their souls and fill them with buoyant lightness.

Every bit of evidence would suggest that the will to be moving is as old as mankind. Take the people in the Old Testament. They were always on the move. First, it's Adam and Eve moving out of Eden. Then it's Cain condemned to be a restless wanderer, Noah drifting on the waters of the Flood, and Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt toward the Promised Land. Some of these figures were out of the Lord's favor and some of them were in it, but all of them were on the move. And as far as the New Testament goes, Our Lord Jesus Christ was what they call a peripatetic--someone who's always going from place to place--whether on foot, on the back of a donkey, or on the wings of angels. But the proof of the will to move is hardly limited to the pages of the Good Book. Any child of ten can tell you that getting-up-and-going is topic number one in the record of man's endeavors. Take that big red book that Billy is always lugging around. It's got twenty-six stories in it that have come down through the ages and almost every one of them is about some man going somewhere. Napoleon heading off on one of his conquests, or King Arthur in search of the Holy Grail. Some of the men in the book are figures from history and some from fancy, but whether real or imagined, almost every one of them is on his way to someplace different from where he started. So, if the will to move is as old as mankind and every child can tell you so, what happens to a man like my father? What switch is flicked in the hallway of his mind that takes the God-given will for motion and transforms it into the will for staying put? It isn't due to a loss of vigor. For the transformation doesn't come when men like my father are growing old and infirm. It comes when they are hale, hearty, and at the peak of their vitality. If you asked them what brought about the change, they will cloak it in the language of virtue. They will tell you that the American Dream is to settle down, raise a family, and make an honest living. They'll speak with pride of their ties to the community through the church and the Rotary and the chamber of commerce, and all other manner of stay-puttery. But maybe, I was thinking as I was driving over the Hudson River, just maybe the will to stay put stems not from a man's virtues but from his vices. After all, aren't gluttony, sloth, and greed all about staying put? Don't they amount to sitting deep in a chair where you can eat more, idle more, and want more? In a way, pride and envy are about staying put too. For just as pride is founded on what you've built up around you, envy is founded on what your neighbor has built across the street. A man's home may be his castle, but the moat, it seems to me, is just as good at keeping people in as it is at keeping people out.

Danas sahranjujem cvijeće! Smiju se: ona je luda. A sama jednom kad umrem, O tko će mi inijeti lijes?

O crvenoj sobi jučer sam sanjao snove, A danas nad vodom tamne pjesme mi zvone. Nad pjenom mora otoci oblaka plove, A magle s brijega u šume i šipražja rone. Pod mjesecom vječnim nema prolazne mjere I samo je oseka, plima vječne duševne mijene. U detinjstva dane - zar može ponestati vjere, U rijeku Han i južne mostove njene?

Gone are the days When the sun would find me Still in bed at noon, Days of thoughtless pleasure And delight. Last night I chanced to see The Goddess of the Moon, And glimpsed the brightness of Zen's unfettered light.

Last night I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls; Tonight beside the watery waste I sing. The island's cloud-cap drifts above the sea, And mists about its mountain forests cling. Our pasts and presents to the moon are one; Our lives and loves beyond our reckoning. Yet still my heart yearns for that distant South, Where time is lost in one eternal spring.

Here, too, everything had been transformed: brilliantly embroidered screens and cushions specially brought out for the occasion and an incense burner set down in the middle of the room from which emanated delicious odours of pine and cedar and Hundred Blend aromatic.

At evening Father became an aged man; in dark rooms Mother's countenance turned to stone and the curse of the degenerate race weighed upon the youth. At times he remembered his childhood filled with sickness, terrors and darkness, secretive games in the starlit garden, or that he fed the rats in the twilit yard. Out of a blue mirror stepped the slender form of his sister and he fled as if dead into the dark. At night his mouth broke open like a red fruit and the stars grew bright above his speechless sorrow. His dreams filled the ancient house of his forefathers. At evening he loved to walk across the derelict graveyard, or he perused the corpses in a dusky death-chamber, the green spots of decay upon their lovely hands. By the convent gate he begged for a piece of bread; the shadow of a black horse sprang out of the darkness and startled him. When he lay in his cool bed, he was overcome by indescribable tears. But there was nobody who might have laid a hand on his brow. When autumn came he walked, a visionary, in brown meadows. O, the hours of wild ecstasy, the evenings by the green stream, the hunts. O, the soul that softly sang the song of the withered reed; fiery piety. Silent and long he gazed into the starry eyes of the toad, felt with thrilling hands the coolness of ancient stone and invoked the time-honoured legend of the blue spring. O, the silver fishes and the fruit that fell from crippled trees. The chiming chords of his footsteps filled him with pride and contempt for mankind. Along his homeward path he came upon a deserted castle. Ruined gods stood in the garden sorrowfully at eventide. Yet to him it seemed: here I have lived forgotten years. An organ chorale filled him with the thrill of God. But he spent his days in a dark cave, lied and stole and hid himself, a flaming wolf, from his mother's white countenance. O, that hour when he sank low with stony mouth in the starlit garden, the shadow of the murderer fell upon him. With scarlet brow he entered the moor and the wrath of God chastised his metal shoulders; O, the birches in the storm, the dark creatures that shunned his deranged paths. Hatred scorched his heart, rapture, when he did violence to the silent child in the fresh green summer garden, recognized in the radiant his deranged countenance. Woe, that evening by the window, when a horrid skeleton, Death, emerged from scarlet flowers. O, you towers and bells; and the shadows of night fell as stone upon him.

似蹙非蹙笼烟眉，似喜非喜含情目。闲静如桥花照水，行动似弱柳扶风。

A wintry sunset gilds the vine-wreathed door Where stands, mossed by old rains, the flower pot. Its snowy blooms, as snow impermanent, Are as pure as pure white jade that alters not. O fragrant frailty, that so fears the wind! Most radiant whiteness! Full moon without spot! White flower-sprite, shake your silken wings! Away! And join with me to the hymn the dying day!

A place remote, where footsteps seldom pass, And dew glistens on the untrodden grass.

Going indoors she sat down by the moon-window to take her medicine. Light reflected from the bamboos outside passed through the gauze of the window to make a green gloom within, lending a cold aquarian look to the floor and the surfaces of the furniture.

Once outside the courtyard gate, the Garden stretched out on every hand in uniform whiteness, uninterrupted except for the dark green of a pine tree or the lighter green of some bamboos here and there in the distance. He felt as if he was standing in the middle of a great glittering crystal bowl.

On the stone tower a stork unwatchful sleeps - On the warm mat a cat contented sighs. In moonlit caves, the silvery water laps - And red flags flutter against sunset skies.

Like spendthrift youths in spring's new fashions dressed, Its bare thin branches burst in glorious flower. Snow no more falls, but a bright rosy cloud Tints hills and streams in one long sunset hour. Through this red flood my dream-boat makes its way, While flutes sound chill from many a maiden's bower. Sure from no earthly stock this beauty came, But trees immortal round the Fairy Tower.

No es que esté arrepentida de nada; simplemente, si hubiera sabido cómo terminarían las cosas habría actuado de otra manera; pero cometí la necedad de pensar que siempre estaríamos juntos.

Tenía el ceño elevado, pero a la vez no fruncido; sus elocuentes ojos mostraban alegría y dolor al mismo tiempo; su delicada fragilidad le daba un aire singular. Sus ojos brillaban de lágrimas, su aliento era leve y suave. En reposo parecía una flor adorable reflejada en un estanque; al moverse semejaba un flexible sauce meciéndose al viento. Se la veía más inteligente que Bi Gan, más delicada que Xi Shi.

Él me dio dulce rocío —dijo Perla Bermeja—, pero yo no tengo agua para compensar su bondad. Si baja al mundo de los hombres me gustaría acompañarlo; así podré saldar mi deuda derramando por él las lágrimas de toda una vida.

Él me dio dulce rocío —dijo Perla Bermeja—, pero yo no tengo agua para compensar su bondad. Si baja al mundo de los hombres me gustaría acompañarlo; así podré saldar mi deuda derramando por él las lágrimas de toda una vida.

Tenía el ceño elevado, pero a la vez no fruncido; sus elocuentes ojos mostraban alegría y dolor al mismo tiempo; su delicada fragilidad le daba un aire singular. Sus ojos brillaban de lágrimas, su aliento era leve y suave. En reposo parecía una flor adorable reflejada en un estanque; al moverse semejaba un flexible sauce meciéndose al viento. Se la veía más inteligente que Bi Gan, más delicada que Xi Shi.

Tenía el ceño elevado, pero a la vez no fruncido; sus elocuentes ojos mostraban alegría y dolor al mismo tiempo; su delicada fragilidad le daba un aire singular. Sus ojos brillaban de lágrimas, su aliento era leve y suave. En reposo parecía una flor adorable reflejada en un estanque; al moverse semejaba un flexible sauce meciéndose al viento. Se la veía más inteligente que Bi Gan, más delicada que Xi Shi.

Hours later, the King of Adarlan stood at the back of the dungeon chamber as his secret guards dragged Rena Goldsmith forward. The butcher’s block at the center of the room was already soaked with blood. Her companion’s headless corpse lay a few feet away, his blood trickling toward the drain in the floor. Perrington and Roland stood silent beside the king, watching, waiting. The guards shoved the singer to her knees before the stained stone. One of them grabbed a fistful of her red-gold hair and yanked, forcing her to look at the king as he stepped forward. “It is punishable by death to speak of or to encourage magic. It is an affront to the gods, and an affront to me that you sang such a song in my hall.” Rena Goldsmith just stared at him, her eyes bright. She hadn’t struggled when his men grabbed her after the performance or even screamed when they’d beheaded her companion. As if she’d been expecting this. “Any last words?” A queer, calm rage settled over her lined face, and she lifted her chin. “I have worked for ten years to become famous enough to gain an invitation to this castle. Ten years, so I could come here to sing the songs of magic that you tried to wipe out. So I could sing those songs, and you would know that we are still here—that you may outlaw magic, that you may slaughter thousands, but we who keep the old ways still remember.” Behind him, Roland snorted. “Enough,” the king said, and snapped his fingers. The guards shoved her head down on the block. “My daughter was sixteen,” she went on. Tears ran over the bridge of her nose and onto the block, but her voice remained strong and loud. “Sixteen, when you burned her. Her name was Kaleen, and she had eyes like thunderclouds. I still hear her voice in my dreams.” The king jerked his chin to the executioner, who stepped forward. “My sister was thirty-six. Her name was Liessa, and she had two boys who were her joy.” The executioner raised his ax. “My neighbor and his wife were seventy. Their names were Jon and Estrel. They were killed because they dared try to protect my daughter when your men came for her.” Rena Goldsmith was still reciting her list of the dead when the ax fell.

Our house has now enjoyed nearly a century of dazzling success. Suppose one day "joy at its height engenders sorrow". And suppose that, in the words of another proverb, "when the tree falls, the monkeys scatter". Will not our reputation as one of the great, cultured households of the age then turn into a hollow mockery?"...Honour and disgrace follow each other in an unending cycle. No human power can arrest that cycle and hold it permanently in one position. What you can do, however, is to plan while we are still prosperous for the kind of heritage that will stand up to the hard times when they come.

Whereas in this favoured Country, situate in the centremost part of the four continents of the earth, on which it has pleased Heaven to bestow the blessings of everlasting prosperity and peace, we... have, with all due reverence and care, prepared offcies for the salvation of all departed souls, supplicating Heaven and calling upon the Name of the Lord Buddha...Now, earnestly praying and beseeching the Eighteen Guardians of the Sangha, The Warlike Guardians of the Law, and the Twelve Guardians of the Months mercifully to extend their holy compassion towards us, but terribly to blaze forth in divine majesty against the powers of evil, we do solemnly perform for nine and forty days the Great Mass for the purification, deliverance and salvation of all souls on land and on sea.

Having opened up a way for the imprisoned souls, the chief celebrant had succeeded by means of spells and incantations in breaking open the gates of hell. He had shone his light (a little hand mirror) for the souls in darkness. He had confronted Yama, the Judge of the Dead. He had seized the demon torturers who resisted his progress. He had invoked Ksitigarbha, the Saviour King, to aid him. He had raised up a golden bridge, and now, by means of a litle flag which he held aloft in one hand, was conducting over it those souls from the very deepest pit of hell who still remined undelivered.

Even in a palace hall, Law is the lord of all.