Quotes from Tash Aw

Man is a restless creature, nomadic at heart.

Man is a restless creature, nomadic at heart.

Time — how it expands to fill the spaces you create; how it makes meagre experiences seem never-ending. Whenever he heard people talk about the ravages of time, about how it robbed and deprived, Justin always smiled; because for him, time was an accomplice, plugging the gaps and fleshing out morsels of memory so he would have something substantial to hang on to. That way, however little he had seen or felt, he would always feel as if he had more: a life far richer than the truth.

about "closure" and how worthless it was—why was it that everyone these days needed resolution, why couldn't they just accept that life was messy, that it never ended neatly?

a small piece of silk. It was at once iridescent and delicate, and shone with a colour no Occidental could ever have conceived....I held it in my hands, allowing it to cascade from my fingers. It was shot through with so many strands of colour that every time it moved its appearance changed: moonlight, emeralds and pearls all passed through my hands. This cold chameleon so transformed itself that I could scarcely believe it was the same piece of cloth.

every second of the day offers a beautiful opportunity to achieve success. Therefore, you have 86,400 chances to change your life every day.

my limbs became leaden, my head light as yarn on a weaver's spindle. My vision dazzled with the colours of richly shot silk; above me the sky was a tentative white canopy.

A marriage could not be happy if the husband was prettier than the wife, that much she knew.

What were you doing when you were eight, thirteen, fifteen, and eighteen? The answer is, I suspect: not very much.

The gorgeous breathlessness and thrilling pulse -- those are sensations that the years have layered on top of the initial emptiness, like sheet after sheet of silk covering a bare table. More than fifty years later I can only see the cloth; the table has been obscured.

he returned to his barricaded silence, locking me out of his world. The unfathomable, inscrutable East, I thought. I was cut adrift from the shores of understanding. The sea spread itself before me, leading to a blank, blank horizon.

Outlines of dead logs I hauled away remained impressed on the damp earth, scarring the ground with their funereal shapes.

You must appreciate that time is always against you. It is never kind or encouraging. It gnaws away invisibly at all good things. Therefore, if you have any desire to accomplish anything, even the simplest task, do it swiftly and with great purpose, or time will drag it away from you.

Friendship is not necessary for closeness

they will never mock her either, because all the things that she has, she can never lose.

fake leather looks great until you use it in demanding situations, and then it shows its true colors and lets you down.

my mother took a younger man as a lover. They spent all day in her boudoir, festering in each other's company.

in a place like China. People rush ahead of you; they have no time to look back.

Their grandchildren will grow up so middle-class and affluent that the idea of deprivation will have no place in their lives, will seem to belong not to their country, but a much poorer neighbour like Cambodia or Bangladesh.