Quotes from Shan Sa

I am like them-I want life. I want to go back to Manchuria, to find my house and my go table. I will return to the Square of a Thousand Winds and wait for my Stranger. I know he will come ... one afternoon ... as he did that first time.

Men's freedom is their unfaithfulness: the Son of Heaven or the son of a peasant, they could both reduce me to the mediocre torments of a woman.

I had lost some of my naivete and gained strength. These women with their pointless scheming could not contain me, and I watched the volatile world of the gynaeceum with a detached eye. The Forbidden City had buried my youth, and in the monastery, I had died and come back to life. Friends, enemies and mistresses had all disappeared. I was a ghost from a lost world, still going from one season to the next and still living for one man alone.

I reply with a letter as brief as his: 'My brother, after my first battle the only thing I now worship is the sun, a star that represents death's constancy. Beware of the moon, which reflects our world of beauty. It waxes and wanes, it is treacherous and ephemeral. We will all die some day . . . .

In our time women can demonstrate prowess in a thousand ways. Long ago the great Princess Sun of Ping fought for her father, the August Sovereign. At her funeral, His Majesty called for the trumpets and drums to be sounded, an honor reserved for men. My dear, from this day you must dress her as a boy. Give her an education worthy of her own determination.

Men's strengths go hand in hand with their weaknesses. That is why there is no such thing as an invincible warrior, and why heroes die.

A man who does not like power will suffer from its cruelty.

I, the ordinary restless child, the plain adolescent, the commoner who had been a nun twice, would prove to be a Daughter of Heaven.

I must go live at the ends of the earth and have my child there while I wait for Min and Jing to be freed. That happy day will come: two men making their way towards a little cottage lost in the open countryside. The door opens . . .

When I get out of the rickshaw I walk slowly towards the school building, taking small steps. All around me girls are running: in the morning the young are as noisy as a flock of sparrows.

The trees part before her slender form and close in again behind me. The roads weave a vast labyrinth, and I am lost.

It has taken many years for the game of go to initiate me into the freedom of slipping between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. From one stone to the next, from black to white, the thousands of stones have ended up building a bridge far into the infinite expanse of China.

Eventually I fall asleep, savoring the melancholy pleasures of victory. I wake with a start to a muffled sound: the wolves could not wait for us to withdraw; they are already devouring the bodies.

Life is an infernal loop where the day before yesterday has merged with today, and yesterday has been jettisoned. We think we are moving forward in time, but we are always prisoners of the past.

A great emptiness had been carved out of my soul; I watched all the effervescence of the world with a derisive smile.

Today I finally recognise the mistake that almost became my downfall: I expected too much out of life. I thought it would owe me happiness and cheerfulness. In fact, life offers neither good nor evil. Happiness is a fruit you cultivate and harvest inside your soul. You can not gain it from the outside. Why should I be fretful like a child that has got no gift? I have years ahead to be happy.

I hand the cage to him and he takes it firmly in his arms. 'Your hankie smells nice,' he says, almost in a whisper.

I held in my hand an invisible sword that sliced through every illusion. The sharpness of the blade gave me its icy and dazzling strength. I no longer believed in the compassion of men; I believed in the strength of the gods. I had averted my eyes from my suffering and fixed them on the stars.

A man who does not like power will suffer from its cruelty. He would be unable to raise his hand in punishment or to untangle the web woven by good and evil.

She died a few days later, and her death buried once and for all the intrigues between the Precious Wife, the Gracious Wife, and all the Imperial favorites. Rivalries and alliances, loathing and attraction had been dissolved. Their existence had been a pointless tragedy, just as the talent of one prodigious poetess had been.

The strength of the snow and the fire has turned you into a traveling magician. You heal people by holding their hands between yours, you make them forget the cold, hunger, sickness, and war.

S Novom je godinom zapo?eo novi kozmi?ki ciklus. Neka no?ne more iz prošlosti zauvijek nestanu!

Obješen na nebu, Mjesec netaknute ?isto?e nije se brinuo za ovaj svijet prašine.

I try very hard to keep my eyes open so that I can look at my beloved.