Quotes from Pearl S. Buck

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together

To understand what happens now one must find the cause, which may be very long ago in its beginning, but is surely there, and therefore a knowledge of history as detailed as possible is essential if we are to comprehend the present and be prepared for the future.

Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored — it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.

God—if there is a God—would not choose one man above another or one people above another.

Happiness was waiting to be chosen.

We can't stop time, but it will sometimes stand still for love.

If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works, and we do not, as some do, sit idling over a gambling table or gossiping on doorsteps never swept, letting the fields grow to weeds and our children go half-fed! (Buck, 65)

He was part of a whole, a people scattered over the earth and yet eternally one and indivisible. Wherever a Jew lived, in whatever safety and isolation, he still belonged to his people.

If there is no other life, then this one has been enough to make it worth being born myself...a human being.

Somehow I had learned from Thoreau, who doubtless learned it from Confucius, that if a man comes to do his own good for you, then must you flee that man and save yourself

Wandering is never waste, dear boy,' he said. 'While you wander you will find much to wonder about, and wonder is the first step to creation.

Yes, she now believed that when her body died, her soul would go on. Gods she did not worship, and faith she had none, but love she had and forever. Love alone had awakened her sleeping soul and had made it deathless. She knew she was immortal.

We learn as much from sorrow as from joy, as much from illness as from health, from handicap as from advantage—and indeed perhaps more.

No se puede parar el tiempo, pero para el amor a veces se detiene

Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.

He saw on the paper a picture of a man, white-skinned, who hung upon a crosspiece of wood. The man was without clothes except for a bit about his loins, and to all appearences he was dead, since his head drooped upon his shoulder and his eyes were closed above his bearded lips. Wang Lung looked at the pictured man in horror and with increasing interest.

As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world.

But hers was a strange heart, sad in its very nature, and she could never weep and ease it as other women do, for her tears never brought her comfort.

Can such stiff and formal moldings as words capture the spirit-essence of love?

To take each day as a separate page, to be read carefully, savoring all of the details, this is best for me, I think.

Hunger makes a thief of any man.

Well I know I am ugly and cannot be loved—

Of course imagination is the beginning of creation. Without imagination there can be no creation.

Omul prost se teme de cel deÈ™tept È™i îl ur??te. Oricât de bun ar fi cel deÈ™tept, trebuie s? priceap? c? asta nu va cuceri afecÈ›iunea unuia cu mai puÈ›in? minte decât el.