“ Key Rabbit, allow me to bore you with a comparison of your wife and a beautiful woman, I said. In the morning a beauty must lie in bed for three or four hours gathering strength for another mighty bat… Barry Hughart
“ Little girls have large maternal instincts, and they take the Feast of Hungry Ghosts very seriously, and they were making their rounds with small lanterns made from candles inside rolled lotus and sag… Barry Hughart
“ To cherish perfection is to commit creative suicide, and every true artist knows that a masterpiece is an accident that should be burned. Barry Hughart
“ Master Li, how are we going to murder a man who laughs at axes? I asked.We are going to , dear boy. Our first order of business will be to find a deranged alchemist, which should not be very difficult… Barry Hughart
“ The emotional health of a village depended upon having a man whom everyone loved to hate, and Heaven had blessed us with two of them. Barry Hughart
“ Error can point the way to truth, while empty-headedness can only lead to more empty-headedness or to a career in politics. Barry Hughart
“ Don't be ashamed of reliving your childhood, Ox, because all of us must do it now and then to maintain our sanity. Barry Hughart
“ Everybody knows that the soul of a cat is formed from the composite souls of nine debauched nuns who failed in their vows. Barry Hughart
“ The supernatural can be very annoying until one finds the key that transforms it into science, he observed mildly... Come on, Ox, let's go out and get killed. Barry Hughart
“ Occasionally a moderately intelligent thought misses a turn and accidentally enters my mind Barry Hughart
“ Once there was a great king who gazed down from a tall tower upon a gardener who sang as he worked, and the king cried, ‘Ah, to have a life of no cares! If only I could be that gardener.’ And the voic… Barry Hughart
“ Within an hour we had a visit from a gentleman with shifty eyes and an interesting pattern of knife scars where his nose used to be, Barry Hughart
“ One of the previous possessors of the stone was Chuang Tzu. He had a disciple who spent seven years studying universal energy and then demonstrated his wisdom by walking across the surface of a river… Barry Hughart
“ The problem with 'the crown jewel of Chinese literature' [Dream of the Red Chamber] is that it has two thousand pages and an equal number of characters, and the hero is an effeminate ass who should ha… Barry Hughart
“ Nothing on the face of this earth - and I do mean nothing - is half so dangerous as a children's story that happens to be real, and you and I are wandering blindfolded through a myth devised by a mani… Barry Hughart
