Jin Quotes

Living everyday in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.

You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.

History has failed us, but no matter.

Learn everything. Fill your mind with knowledge—it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you.” Hansu never told him to study, but rather to learn, and it occurred to Noa that there was a marked difference. Learning was like playing, not labor.

No one is clean. Living makes you dirty.

We cannot help but be interested in the stories of people that history pushes aside so thoughtlessly.

Jin had told me once there was no arguing against belief. It was a foreign language to logic.

a man must learn to forgive—to know what is important, that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement.

Jin always smiled at me like we were both about to be in big trouble and he loved it. The prince smiled like he was forgiving you for it.

...a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn't be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet.

Patriotism is just an idea, so is capitalism or communism. But ideas can make men forget their own interests. And the guys in charge will exploit men who believe in ideas too much.

Wei WuXian, “Yep. Congratulations. You’re under corpse poisoning.” Jin Ling, “How is this something to congratulate someone for?!

There's nothing fucking worse than knowing that you're just like everybody else.

You are very brave, Noa. Much, much braver than me. Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.

Amani." My eyes flew open. Jin was standing in the gates to Fahali. His face cleared as he saw me, and he ran toward me, relief written all over him. "Thank God." "You don't believe in God," I said. It came out half a croak just as he closed the last of the space between us with a kiss.

There was more to being something than just blood.

There was consolation: The people you loved, they were always there with you, she had learned. Sometimes, she could be in front of a train kiosk or the window of a bookstore, and she could feel Noa's small hand when he was a boy, and she would close her eyes and think of his sweet grassy smell and remember that he had always tried his best. At those moments, it was good to be alone to hold on to him.

Wait." "So what am I supposed to do now?" "You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years' imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey." (222-223)

Fill your mind with knowledge—it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you.

And then came that grin. I may have traitor eyes, but Jin had the sort of smile that would turn over whole empires to the enemy-that made me feel like I suddenly understood him exactly, even though I knew nothing about him. The kind that made me feel like if I was on the right side of it, we could do anything together

Noa had been a sensitive child who had believed that if he followed all the rules and was the best, then somehow, the hostile world would change its mind. His death may have been her fault for having allowed him to believe such cruel ideals.

She turned to Jin now, sprawled by the fire, his hat pulled over his eyes. “I can tell you’re awake. Are you coming with us?” He sighed, tipping his hat backward. “Yeah, yeah. Just trying to get some sleep before going to near certain death.

because she would not believe that she was no different than her parents, that seeing him as only Korean—good or bad—was the same as seeing him only as a bad Korean. She could not see his humanity, and Noa realized that this was what he wanted most of all: to be seen as human.

In Seoul, people like me get called Japanese bastards, and in Japan, I'm just another dirty Korean no matter how much money I make or how nice I am. So what the fuck?

In the end, your belly was your emperor.

Once there was a boy from the sea who fell in love with a girl from the desert. [...] But he wondered if a boy from the sea and a girl from the desert could ever survive together. He feared that she might burn him alive or that he might drown her. Until finally he stopped fighting it and set himself on fire for her.

No walking! No standing, no bending, no moving, no accessing the Shadow Roads, nothing. You don't swim for an hour after eating, you don't swan around like an idiot for an hour after narrowly avoiding death.' 'Toby does,' said Quentin. 'Toby is genetically predisposed to swan around like an idiot,' Jin shot back. 'Now sit.

The more you move, the stronger you'll grow, not like a tree that can be killed if you uproot it.

A woman's lot is to suffer.

Muhabbat jin ky saath hoti hai, woh kabhi tanha nahi hoty. muhabbat unhen kabhi tanha hony nahi deti.

It was not Hansu that she missed, or even Isak. What she was seeing again in her dreams was her youth, her beginning, and her wishes--so this is how she became a woman.

Quality is quality,” Jin said. “Age is irrelevant. No one bitches about Shakespeare fans.

Sunja-ya, a woman’s life is endless work and suffering. There is suffering and then more suffering. It’s better to expect it, you know. You’re becoming a woman now, so you should be told this. For a woman, the man you marry will determine the quality of your life completely. A good man is a decent life, and a bad man is a cursed life—but no matter what, always expect suffering, and just keep working hard. No one will take care of a poor woman—just ourselves.

Fear sees, even when eyes are closed.

Life makes you pay...everybody pays something

Her father had taught her not to judge people on such shallow points: What a man wore or owned had nothing to do with his heart and character.

What else was I meant to do? Leave you to die?" "You might've." "I wouldn't have.

Arms around my waist caught me before I could hit the ground. "I've got you," Jin said in my ear. "Let go; I've got you.

I swear to God, if he's hurt you, Amani, I will make him suffer for it." "You don't believe in God." "Then I swear to you.

Neither had realized the loneliness each had lived with for such a long time until the loneliness was interrupted by genuine affection.

Maybe I can never fly, Baby I can't touch the sky.

You have to live, Jin, and know that I've never been prouder of anything than being the owner of your heart.

To try is to invite uncertainty. Where confidence goes, success usually follows.

Even if there were hundred bad Japanese, if there was one good one, he refused to make a blanket statement

You're right." He cut me off. "I never understood this country. I never understood why he chose to leave everything else behind and stay for this. Not until I met you." I felt like he'd pushed me, like I was falling and I needed him to reel those words back in to keep me standing straight. "You /are/ this country, Amani." He spoke more quietly now. "More alive than anything ought to be in this place. All fire and gunpowder, with one finger always on the trigger.

Life is a journey, and you can't carry everything with you. Only the usable baggage.

But as the good-hearted young man discovers, a hero is not merely born, he is honed in the moments when his love and loyalty are the most sorely tested.” ― Jin Yong

What do you think happens" I said instead. "When we die?" Jin didn't believe in gods. He didn't believe in heavens or hells or worlds after. Just in this world. Just in now. Jin traced my face, like he was trying to remember it. "I think they burn us and we become dust and ash." He ran a finger across the edge of my lips. "And I think that the dust that was me will spend until the end of time trying to get as close as possible the the dust that was you out in that vast desert.

All her life, Sunja had heard this sentiment from other women, that they must suffer—suffer as a girl, suffer as a wife, suffer as a mother—die suffering. Go-saeng—the word made her sick.

Burying your head in the sand does not make you invisible it only leads to suffocation.

You strive to have a good heart. But what is a heart? Just a chunk of flesh that a dog can eat.

the pain didn’t go away, but its sharp edge had dulled and softened like sea glass.

People are awful. Drink some beer.” Haruki

Although, if you like everything you read, I can't take you seriously. Perhaps you didn't think about these books long enough.

Change. Adapt. Bend so as not to be broken. Let opportunity guide your actions.

If it came to a choice of being loved without respect or respected and not loved, I wanted to be respected. And JinYeong promised both.

Young man, sometimes in life there are a few sappy things one must say.” “What?” Jin Ling asked. ”’Thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’,” Wei Wuxian replied “there’ll come a day when you’ll say them through tears.

She's awake! By which I mean, of course, 'She's miraculously not dead, again,' since by all rights, you should be. Oberon must really love your dumb ass.

Verily, a man without fear is either dead or happy to die.

My aunt Safiyah might be blood, but Jin I knew. And I didn’t want to leave him. He made the world bigger. I wanted to go to the countries he’d been to. And more than anything I wanted him to ask me to go with him. But we were running out of time together.

Having destroyed countless sects, nobody would listen to his explanation, especially when Jin GuangYao would be there fanning the flames. Lan WangJi, though, was different from him. He wouldn’t even have to explain, and people would explain for him, such as how HanGuang-Jun had been deceived by the YiLing Patriarch. Wei WuXian, 'HanGuang-Jun, you don’t have to follow me!' Lan WangJi looked straight in front of him, saying nothing in reply.

Yes, of course. If you love anyone, you cannot help but share his suffering. If we love our Lord, not just admire him or fear him or want things from him, we must recognize his feelings; he must be in anguish over our sins. We must understand this anguish. The Lord suffers with us. He suffers like us. It is a consolation to know this. To know that we are not in fact alone in our suffering.

But ideas can make men forget their own interests. And the guys in charge will exploit men who believe in ideas too much.

He was suffering, and in a way, he could manage that; but he had caused others to suffer, and he did not know why he had to live now and recall the series of terrible choices that had not looked so terrible at the time. Was that how it was for most people?

I think I screamed. She certainly did. I started to walk away, she followed. We continued to scream at each other. We were in the middle of a busy square. People stopped to look at us. A lot of people. I wonder now what they thought. That Jin-Ae was my wife? My lover? Surely not an ambitious employee haranguing her boss!

Death whispers your name to me.

Is there a reason you keep coming back injured when I leave you for five seconds, or is it---" His voice carried too loud, and I clapped a hand over his mouth, shutting him up. "Don't flatter yourself," I said quietly. "I'm always getting injured when you're around, too.

What surprised him was that as he felt closer to death, he felt the terror of death, its very finality. There were so many things he had failed to do. There were even more things he should never have done.

That child who sprang from my own flesh and blood is perhaps the creature I'm most distant from.

Optimists are usually inexperienced.

It's not that you don't understand, it's that you don't like it.

The only time you should ever look back, is to see how far you've come.

no matter what, always expect suffering, and just keep working hard.

She could not see his humanity, and Noa realized that this was what he wanted most of all: to be seen as human.

You're wrong, you know. I'm not with you because of who you became. I fell in love with you when I was bleeding under a counter at the dead end of the desert and you saved my life. Back when we were both who we used to be.

Etsuko had failed in this important way—she had not taught her children to hope, to believe in the perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win. Pachinko was a foolish game, but life was not.

You crave winning and fear losing instead of just doing. To succeed you must remove your self-imposed limitations.

Growth of consciousness does not depend on the might of the intellect but on the conviction of the heart.

Noa stared at her. She would always believe that he was someone else, that he wasn't himself but some fanciful idea of a foreign person; she would always feel like she was someone special because she had condescended to be with someone everyone else hated. His presence would prove to the world that she was a good person, an educated person, a liberal person. Noa didn't care about being Korean when he was with her; in fact, he didn't care about being Korean or Japanese with anyone. He wanted to be just himself, whatever that meant; he wanted to forget himself sometimes. But that wasn't possible. It would never be possible with her.

There are moments you wait for. And then there are moments you wait for. Moments you spend every other moment preparing for. Points of your life that click and turn. Push you in a completely new direction.

I work hard, I work very hard. All the books at least 30 revisions.

Your thoughts are transparent.

All landowners who were foolish enough to stick around were shot. Communists see people only in simple categories.

Man, life’s going to keep pushing you around, but you have to keep playing.

Once you've done it with him, he won't abandon you. If he really loves you, if he's a man with a heart, he'll follow you wherever you go. If he doesn't, he isn't the man you want, is he?

Why did her family think pachinko was so terrible? Her father, a traveling salesman, had sold expensive life insurance policies to isolated housewives who couldn't afford them, and Mozasu created spaces where grown men and women could play pinball for money. Both men had made money from chance and fear and loneliness. Every morning, Mozasu and his men tinkered with the machines to fix the outcomes--there could only be a few winners and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones. How could you get angry at the ones who wanted to be in the game? Etsuko had failed in this important way--she had not taught her children to hope, to believe in the perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win. Pachinko was a foolish game, but life was not.

I'm not good at losing people, Amani, and you know I don't give a damn about this country." The rest of him was still now, something solid to hang on to. But his fingers were sliding into my hair, making me shiver. "I give a damn about you and you are this place. I thought I had to do without you if you were so determined to leave the world. But then you were gone and I would have torn the desert apart looking for you.

I would tell young journalists to be brave and go against the tide. When everyone else is relying on the internet, you should not; when nobody's walking, you should walk; when few people are reading profound books, you should read. ... rather than seeking a plusher life you should pursue some hardship. Eat simple food. When everyone's going for quick results, pursue things of lasting value. Don't follow the crowd; go in the opposite direction. If others are fast, be slow. -- Jin Yongquan

His Presbyterian minster father had believed in a divine design, and Mozasu believed that life was like this game where the player could adjust the dials yet also expect the uncertainty of factors he couldn't control. He understood why his customers wanted to play something that looked fixed but which also left room for randomness and hope.

People are rotten everywhere you go. They’re no good. You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.” Sunja

Every morning, Mozasu and his men tinkered with the machines to fix the outcomes-there could only be a few winners and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones. How could you get angry at the ones who wanted to be in the game?

Writing is not a great profession as a lot of writers proclaim. I write because this is something I can do. Another thing—very often I think a lot of writers write because they have failed to do other things. How many writers can’t drive? A lot. They’re not practical. They are not capable in everyday life.

The truth is I had no idea what I was doing when it came to you, Amani. I tried to leave you in Dustwalk because I didn't want to drag you into my brother's war. I came back for you because I didn't want to see you die at the hands of my other brother. But either way, I was bound to wind up doing one or the other. Just depended on which one." His hand came up like he was going to reach for me but dropped to his side instead. "I was glad in Sazi when I saw you'd gone because it meant you'd escaped on your own path, and I was glad when you took the compass because it gave me a reason to go after you. And yes, I lied to keep you out of Izman because I was afraid someone would know what you were and you'd get snapped up and sold to the Sultan. And I steered you toward Dassama figuring there was a chance I might be able to deliver you to the sea and get you out of this country before it killed you.

My knuckles skimmed over the edges of the sun tattooed over his heart. That was the last thing I noticed before I kissed him. His jaw tensed in surprise for a moment; his hand gripped my arm hard enough to hurt. And then his body was flush against mine, pushing me back against the wall of the train. I was a desert girl. I thought I knew heat. I was wrong

Taalim-o-tadrees ki barhi bad naseebi yeh hai ky aam ustaad amuman oast darjay ka shakhs hota hai aur woh zehni, jismani aur jazbaati tor per lakiir key fakiir qisam ki batin sochta hai. Isy zabt-o-nazam sy middle calss logo sy aur parhaku talbah ko parhany sy muhabbat hoti hai. Lykin sara din woh barhi qadar awar shakhsieto aur in ky karnaamo ki misalen dyta hai. Aysy log jinhuny kabhi mawshray ky saath mutabqat na ki. aam tareen hoty hoy woh aysy logo ki taalim-e-aam kerta hai jin ki satah per woh soch bhi nahi sakta , jin ki satah per woh soch bhi nahi sakta. Is ka apna kirdaar in bechu ko aam banany per masar rehta hai aur iski taalim bechu ko khaas banany per uksati hai. School sy bhaag jany waly bechu ki jagah school mai nahi hoti lykin inhi baaghi bechu ko bench per kharha ker ky in azeem shakhsieto ki rosahn misalen di jati hain jo khud school sy bhagy hoty hyn. Woh bechu ko geniouses ki kitaaben padha ker aam bnany ki koshish kerta hai aur yehi taalim ka sub sy barha almiyah hy." Bano Qudsia

Etsuko had to go back to the restaurant, but she settled on the sofa for a few minutes. When she had been a young mother there used to be only one time in her waking hours where she’d felt a kind of peace, and that was always after her children went to bed for the night. She longed to see her sons as they were back then: their legs chubby and white, their mushroom haircuts misshapen because they could never sit still at the barber. She wished she could take back the times she had scolded her children just because she was tired. There were so many errors. If life allowed revisions, she would let them stay in their bath a little longer, read them one more story before bed, and fix them another plate of shrimp.

Clothing was magic. Casey believed this. She would never admit this to her classmates in any of her women's studies courses, but she felt that an article of clothing could change a person... Each skirt, blouse, necklace, or humble shoe said something - certain pieces screamed, and others whispered seductively, but no matter, she experienced each item's expression keenly, and she loved this world. every article suggested an image, a life, a kind of woman, and Casey felt drawn to them." (Free Food For Millionaires, p.41).

Our textbooks were ridiculous propaganda. The first English sentence we learned was "Long live Chairman Mao!" But no one dared to explain the sentence grammatically. In Chinese the term for the optative mood, expressing a wish or desire, means 'something unreal." In 1966 a lecturer at Sichuan University had been beaten up for 'having the audacity to suggest that "Long live Chairman Mao!" was unreal!" One chapter was about a model youth hero who had drowned after jumping into a flood to save an electricity pole because the pole would be used to carry the word of Mao. With great difficulty, I managed to borrow some English language textbooks published before the Cultural Revolution from lecturers in my department and from Jin-ming, who sent me books from his university by post. These contained extracts from writers like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde, and stories from European and American history. They were a joy to read, but much of my energy went toward finding them and then trying to keep them. Whenever someone approached, I would quickly cover the books with a newspaper. This was only partly because of their 'bourgeois' content. It was also important not to appear to be studying too conscientiously, and not to arouse my fellow students' jealousy by reading something far beyond them. Although we were studying English, and were paid par fly for our propaganda value by the government to do this, we must not be seen to be too devoted to our subject: that was considered being 'white and expert." In the mad logic of the day, being good at one's profession ('expert') was automatically equated with being politically unreliable ('white').

Startled, he tried to comfort him. But Father said slowly, "I ask myself whether I am afraid of death. I don't think I am. My life as it is now is worse. And it looks as if there is not going to be any ending. Sometimes I feel weak: I stand by Tranquillity River and think, Just one leap and I can get it over with. Then I tell myself I must not. If I die without being cleared, there will be no end of trouble for all of you… I have been thinking a lot lately. I had a hard childhood, and society was full of injustice. It was for a fair society that I joined the Communists. I've tried my best through the years. But what good has it done for the people? As for myself, why is it that in the end I have come to be the ruin of my family? People who believe in retribution say that to end badly you must have something on your conscience. I have been thinking hard about the things I've done in my life. I have given orders to execute some people…" Father went on to tell Jin-ming about the death sentences he had signed, the names and stories of the e-ba ('ferocious despots') in the land reform in Chaoyang, and the bandit chiefs in Yibin. "But these people had done so much evil that God himself would have had them killed. What, then, have I done wrong to deserve all this?" After a long pause, Father said, "If I die like this, don't believe in the Communist Party anymore.

I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion… The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations… It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm… Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly die for such limited imaginings. —Benedict Anderson