Day by day beneath the opulence of this city Wang Lung lived in the foundations of poverty upon which it was laid.
In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.
He believed that to answer a child’s question before it is asked is to destroy natural curiosity.
You cannot be happy unless you understand that life is sad.
The rich are always afraid.
The children are waiting for us, she said. Those were her words, but what she really said was that I must live and begin now to live. Death must not interrupt life. There were others waiting for us.
Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmitted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.
It is the end of a family- when they begin to sell their land. Out of the land we came and into we must go - and if you will hold your land you can live- no one can rob you of land.
Attachment, Buddha had said, is the cause of grief.
The young do not know enough to be prudent and therefore they attempt the impossible-and achieve it generation after generation.
The basic discovery about any people is the discovery of the relationship between men and women.
None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
Weak? You must learn to take from a person that which is his best and ignore all else.
Yes, their ancients had taught them that no good man would be a soldier and that the warlike man was the least of men and not to be respected, and so they had all believed.
She shook her head. I don’t know one pretty young man from the other, she declared.
It is better to live than to die, and peace is better than war, and though there are some who deny this as robbers do, the truth remains what it is.
But I am fearful of it because I hear she is learned in the Four Books, and learning has never accompanied beauty in women.
And as she had learned to do, while she pondered on large things, she acted on small ones.
All things are possible until they are proven impossible.
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings.