Quotes from Pearl S. Buck

I will spend the rest of my life assembling my own mind and my own soul. I will take care of my body carefully, not that it may any more please a man, but because it houses me and therefore I am dependent upon it.

In silence they lay close, without passion, but closer than passion could bring them they lay close.

To those at the great house it means nothing, this handful of earth, but to me it means how much! (Buck, 57)

Fear alone makes man weak. If you are afraid, your hands tremble, your feet falter, and your brain cannot tell hands and feet what to do.

I should like to penetrate your mind with my own," he said. "I should like to pierce the mysteries of your soul.

Body and soul are partners, and neither must desert the other.

Love changes," she replied. "When the flame dies, the glow remains, but it no longer centers upon one human creature and it warms the whole soul. Then the soul looks at all human creatures with love diffused.

He had other fires and these flamed higher than Love.

As for their child, I am moved in two ways. He will have his own world to make. Being of neither East nor West purely, he will be rejected of each, for none will understand him. But I think, if he has the strength of both his parents, he will understand both worlds, and so overcome.

Well, and you may have lived in the courts of the Old Lord, and you were accounted beautiful, but I have been a man's wife and I have borne him sons, and you are still a slave.

I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.

Make love! He disliked the phrase. Could one make love?

None of us is so much better or wiser than any other than he can destroy a single creature without destroying something of himself.

To shut one's door while others suffer, to care only for one's own, disclaiming responsibility for humanity, is to destroy all good impulse and to build up a deadly selfishness which will be a boomerang in its effect upon ourselves. Let our own children see the opportunity now theirs for Americanism in the best and traditional sense. There was never a better hour than this to be an American. May 1940, Christian Herald.

Is our Heaven your God, and is your God our Heaven?' she inquired. 'They are one and the same,' he replied... 'There is only one true God. He has many names.' 'Then anywhere upon the round earth, by whatever seas, those who believe in any God believe in the One?' she asked. 'And so are brothers,' he said, agreeing. 'And if I do not believe in any?' she inquired willfully. 'God is patient,' he said. 'God waits. Is there not eternity?

I do not blame you, child, for growing up," she announced. "But I teach you this: Whatever happens is always the woman's fault.

The days of my youth are past and to a woman full grown a kiss means everything—or nothing.

I reminded myself that time takes care of many things. Asia had thought me that.

To hate another human being is to take a worm into one's own vitals. It consumes life.

And as she had learned to do, while she pondered on large things, she acted on small ones.

For generations fathers had watched earth and sea.

I believe in the equality of man and woman," Rulan insisted. "Ah," Madame Wu said, "two equals are nevertheless not the same two things. They are equal in importance, equally necessary to life, but not the same

And from that time on the boys were no longer called Elder and Younger, but they were given school names by the old teacher, and this old man, after inquiring into the occupation of their father, erected two names for the sons; for the elder, Nung En, and for the second Nung Wen, and the first word of each name signified one whose wealth is from the earth.

Now, as they were all looking at the new moth, she, too, went to look at it. It was of a creamy yellow color, like the yellow of the lemon called Buddha's Hand, and it had long black antennae. These quivered as it felt itself impaled. The wide wings fluttered and dark spots upon them showed green and gold for a moment. Then the moth was still. How quickly they die! Ch'iuming said suddenly.