Zhu Quotes

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.

the system fails us again and again and creates the illusion that we are the ones who are failing

I felt like a bruised burden, and in my refusal to become a victim, I neglected the tenderness of being a survivor

But if you were determined to want the impossible, there was a better way to get it. Zhu thought with amused defiance: Change the world, and make it possible.

It is often said that a wrong decision taken at the right time is better than a right decision taken at the wrong time.

Perhaps numbness does not signify a “lack” of feeling, just as deserts do not lack for life

I need a sparring partner,” Zhu had explained cheerfully. “You’re about my level, in that you know absolutely nothing.

Lady Rui's jaw was tight with the same intensity Zhu had glimpsed earlier: a compressed rage that had as its heart the female desire to survive all that sought to make her nothing.

Where's the fun in suffering by yourself?" Xu Da said in his good-natured way. Surprised, Zhu realized he was probably her friend. She'd never had a friend before. But she wasn't sure suffering could be shared, even with one's friends. Watching her father and brother die, digging their graves, kneeling for four days in front of the monastery: all of them had been acts of exquisite aloneness. She knew that when she came down to it, you survived and died alone.

Accountability means to say what you do, do what you say.

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.

The art of decision making includes the art of questioning.

Let me lose my mind. It’s the only way to love. —ZHU

I might not know your name,” Ma said, taking Zhu’s hand. “But I know who you are.

I don't want to be great, Zhu repeated. Her desire was the radiance of the sun, an immensity that filled every part of her without exception. Who else understood what it was to feel something of this magnitude; to want something with the entirety of their self, as she did? "I want to be the greatest.

The science of decision-making is to make sure there is an effective decision process in place.

Sense and deal with problems in their smallest state, before they grow bigger and become fatal.

Learning agility means to learn, de-learn, and relearn all the times.

Desire is the cause of all suffering. All Zhu had ever desired was to live. Now she felt the pure strength of that desire inside her, as inseparable as her breath or qi, and knew she would suffer from it. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the awful magnitude of the suffering that would be required to achieve greatness in the chaotic, violent world outside.

Montesquieu wrote: "I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve." If one substituted the word music for reading, the exact same dictum applied to me.

The art of questioning is to ignite innovative thinking; the science of questioning is to frame system thinking, with the progressive pursuit of better solutions.

Both the art of intuition and the science of analytics have the role to play in making wise decisions.

Critical Thinking is not automatic thinking. It takes extra effort to think critically.

Decision making is an art only until the person understands the science.

The search for a proper tempo is not confined to the world of music - one must seek it in life as well

What a terrible man, I thought, worse than a traitor. At least a traitor betrays people by telling the truth. Uncle Zhu tried to save himself by telling lies.

I am grateful for the ways that I have protected myself in the past, for that tells me that I want to live. It tells me that, even if I do not know it, I cherish my miraculous life.

My stomach gave a violent start and turned into a hunk of ice. The world was spinning around me, and blobs of faces and visions of things past were dancing in the red mist that covered the lot. It swirled into a mass of colors and I felt myself swaying on my feet. Someone cried, "Glory, look at the kid!" And the ground rushed up to meet me very suddenly.

The answer from yesterday is not as critical as the questions about the future.

Acknowledge diversity and you will achieve unity. (Rabindranath Tagore)

Selecting the right measure and measuring things right are both art and science. And KPIs influence management behavior as well as business culture.

Learning a new language, just like opening a new window, allows you to see the world with intimacy.

The “result” of micromanagement is perhaps tangible in the short run, but more often causes damage for the long term.

Setting the right priorities or having superior time management skill means knowing the difference between “must have,” and “nice to have.

Self-discipline is nothing but self-consciousness.

The paradox is the result of two opposing truths existing side by side, which can be both right.

A positive mind reflects many of the Sun’s characteristics: brightness, nourishment, and vibrance.

Group Thinking” or lack of courage to ask the tough and strategic questions is the chief weakness on Boards today.

Silo builds the wall in people’s minds and creates the barrier in organizations’ “hearts.

One of the reasons to see improved productivity in Agile is because of the simplicity principle.

Critical Thinking is also called structured thinking.

Critical Thinking brings insight into the situation.

The quality of assessors is critical to the quality of the assessment result.

Coherence improves business flow; resilience makes business robust and anti-fragile.

Having healthy debating enforces critical thinking principles - increased perspective, less prejudgment, and looking at things from different angles.

Decision makers with emotional excellence have the ability to dispassionately examine alternatives via fact finding, analysis, structured planning, objective evaluations, and comparison.

Whatever the measurement system is, it needs to be consistent, repeatable, and as unbiased as possible.

Building a comprehensive problem-solving framework is about leveraging a structured methodology that allows you to frame problems systematically and solve problems creatively.

Fundamentally, leadership is more about the future, but starts at today.

A wise leader doesn’t just follow but discover the path.

Everything was burning. Today it was the bodies; tomorrow it would be the spirit.

The organization's long-term success is based on a set of differentiated capabilities and its core competency.

A core competency is a combination and harmonization of multiple capabilities with a focus.

Digital boards should set the tone for talent development and management.

As a minority author going against the trend, I have only one wish: Should my work fade into obscurity, let it be because my talents are found lacking.

Decision maturity is to ensure the right decisions have been made by the right people at the right time to solve the right problems.

The simplicity and the complexity are just the opposite ends of the same spectrum.

Holistic Thinking is a combination of analysis, Systems Thinking, and Critical Thinking

To think critically, it is first maturing and distancing a bit from self, no matter what level one lives on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

A programmable mind embraces mental agility, to practice “de-learning” and “relearning” all the time.

An adaptive mind has better learning capability.

Resilience is about B.O.U.N.C.E-Bouncing forward includes bouncing back.

Wisdom is the intelligent use of our knowledge, whereas sensibility is an intelligent use of our judgment.

Analysis and synthesis are different mental muscles to serve different purposes.

Using two-dimensional lenses to perceive the multi-faceted world can limit your ability to observe the world more objectively.

An outlier does not lack knowledge but has the interdisciplinary understanding to see things differently.

You can feel creative tension when you sense the freedom to be creative, the harmony not via compliance only, but through brainstorming.

Creativity is a high level of thinking and intelligence.

Innovation has to become the philosophy, and part of DNA in an organization.

The purpose of Innovation Management is to prepare everything to maximize the transformation of an idea to innovation, through well-prepared processes and structures.

Good governance is less about structure and rules than being focused, effective and accountable.

Metaphorically, governance is like a “Steer,” Risk Management is like a “Brake.

A steer may not accelerate the speed of vehicle directly; by navigating the better path, it can shorten the distance or save the energy to reach the right destination.

Independent directors practice independent thinking.

A good strategy tells you not only what specifically needs to accomplish, but WHY.

Agile is more a “direction,” than an “end,” a philosophy and mindset at board level.

The Board’s role is to pull management out of the trees to see the forest.

Strategy oversight is important in tuning and updating a dynamic digital strategy.

Strategic wisdom is an integral and multidimensional intelligence.

Keeping it simple, you have a vision of what you are to become and a strategy for making that happen.

Decisions always refer to the future.

Agile is more a “direction,” than an “end.” Transforming to Agile culture means the business knows the direction they want to go on.

The agile way is more adapt to changes but shall not lose the sight of big picture.

We are moving slowly into an era where Big Data is the starting point, not the end.

It is the time to tremendous awakening toward “inquisitiveness” with cross-cultural sharing through technology and inner insights.

Digital means flow: data flow, information flow, knowledge flow, and mind flow.

Nothing can stop me from quoting myself.

Digital synchronization occurs when all parts of the choir sing their respective parts in harmony.

Strategic Thinking is about uncovering all the options and thinking long term.

Strategic Thinking helps to bridge between where you are and where you want to be.

You cannot make omelets without breaking some eggs.

Being inclusive means to appreciate differences and enjoy the diverse viewpoints.

Being confident means you know who you are, your strength and your limitation.

The diversity along with deep knowledge of the business will allow board directors to be real “thought partners” with senior management as they consider the longer-term goals beyond quarterly earnings.

In a world of well-defined problems, directors are required to exercise influence over volatility, manage uncertainty, simplify complexity, and resolve ambiguity in the 21st-century digital environment.

I have tried to return to an "untainted" version of myself, one that was oblivious to the visceral natures of pain and loss. I obsess over an imagined place of "purity", where the ghosts of my past do not roam, and I realize that as vital as it is to release my hauntings, I cannot return to a self who is untouched by pain. I do not live in a world without pain, and I cannot pretend that pain does not continue as I continue too.

The steady Shen Jue, the calm Shen Jue, and the strategizing Shen Jue had all disappeared without a trace. He was Xie Jinglan, and he was going to find the bookboy he waited for and searched for ten years, Xiahou Lian.

Over the past fifteen years, the iconoclastic mathematician Irakli Loladze has isolated a dramatic effect of carbon dioxide on human nutrition unanticipated by plant physiologists: it can make plants bigger, but those bigger plants are less nutritious. “Every leaf and every grass blade on earth makes more and more sugars as CO2 levels keep rising,” Loladze told Politico, in a story about his work headlined “The Great Nutrient Collapse.” “We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history—[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.” Since 1950, much of the good stuff in the plants we grow—protein, calcium, iron, vitamin C, to name just four—has declined by as much as one-third, a landmark 2004 study showed. Everything is becoming more like junk food. Even the protein content of bee pollen has dropped by a third. The problem has gotten worse as carbon concentrations have gotten worse. Recently, researchers estimated that by 2050 as many as 150 million people in the developing world will be at risk of protein deficiency as the result of nutrient collapse, since so many of the world’s poor depend on crops, rather than animal meat, for protein; 138 million could suffer from a deficiency of zinc, essential to healthy pregnancies; and 1.4 billion could face a dramatic decline in dietary iron—pointing to a possible epidemic of anemia. In 2018, a team led by Chunwu Zhu looked at the protein content of eighteen different strains of rice, the staple crop for more than 2 billion people, and found that more carbon dioxide in the air produced nutritional declines across the board—drops in protein content, as well as in iron, zinc, and vitamins B1, B2, B5, and B9. Really everything but vitamin E. Overall, the researchers found that, acting just through that single crop, rice, carbon emissions could imperil the health of 600 million people. In previous centuries, empires were built on that crop. Climate change promises another, an empire of hunger, erected among the world’s poor.

The hardest part is keeping track of all the characters. We change almost a dozen names to reduce confusion. Two different characters have the last name Zhang, and four have the last name Li. Athena differentiates them by giving them different first names, which she only occasionally uses, and other names that I assume are nicknames (A Geng, A Zhu; unless A is a last name and I’m missing something), or Da Liu and Xiao Liu, which throws me for a loop because I thought Liu was a last name, so what are Da and Xiao doing there? Why are so many of the female characters named Xiao as well? And if they’re family names, does that mean everyone is related? Is this a novel about incest? But the easy fix is to give them all distinct monikers, and I spend hours scrolling through pages on Chinese history and baby name sites to find names that will be culturally appropriate.

Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their— “Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten. “How far did you get?” Quentin said. He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment. I ignored that he’d snuck up on me again, just this once. There was a bigger issue at play. In the book was an illustration of the group done up in bold lines and bright colors. There was Sun Wukong at the front, dressed in a beggar’s cassock, holding his Ruyi Jingu Bang in one hand and the reins of the Dragon Horse in the other. A scary-looking pig-faced man and a wide-eyed demon monk followed, carrying the luggage. And perched on top of the horse was . . . me. The artist had tried to give Xuanzang delicate, beatific features and ended up with a rather girly face. By whatever coincidence, the drawing of Sun Wukong’s old master could have been a rough caricature of sixteen-year-old Eugenia Lo from Santa Firenza, California. “That’s who you think I am?” I said to Quentin. “That’s who I know you are,” he answered. “My dearest friend. My boon companion. You’ve reincarnated into such a different form, but I’d recognize you anywhere. Your spiritual energies are unmistakable.” “Are you sure? If you’re from a long time ago, maybe your memory’s a little fuzzy.” “The realms beyond Earth exist on a different time scale,” Quentin said. “Only one day among the gods passes for every human year. To me, you haven’t been gone long. Months, not centuries.” “This is just . . . I don’t know.” I took a moment to assemble my words. “You can’t walk up to me and expect me to believe right away that I’m the reincarnation of some legendary monk from a folk tale.” “Wait, what?” Quentin squinted at me in confusion. “I said you can’t expect me to go, ‘okay, I’m Xuanzang,’ just because you tell me so.” Quentin’s mouth opened slowly like the dawning of the sun. His face went from confusion to understanding to horror and then finally to laughter. “mmmmphhhhghAHAHAHAHA!” he roared. He nearly toppled over, trying to hold his sides in. “HAHAHAHA!” “What the hell is so funny?” “You,” Quentin said through his giggles. “You’re not Xuanzang. Xuanzang was meek and mild. A friend to all living things. You think that sounds like you?” It did not. But then again I wasn’t the one trying to make a case here. “Xuanzang was delicate like a chrysanthemum.” Quentin was getting a kick out of this. “You are so tough you snapped the battleaxe of the Mighty Miracle God like a twig. Xuanzang cried over squashing a mosquito. You, on the other hand, have killed more demons than the Catholic Church.” I was starting to get annoyed. “Okay, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” If he thought I was the pig, then this whole deal was off. “You’re my weapon,” he said. “You’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang.” I punched Quentin as hard as I could in the face.