“This is I. I am as you see me. I do not care to be otherwise.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from East Wind: West Wind
“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.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from East Wind: West Wind
“Through these seventeen years of your life I have had this hour of your marriage in mind. In everything I have taught you I have considered two persons, the mother of your husband and your husband. For her sake I have taught you how to prepare and to present tea to an elder; how to stand in an elder’s presence; how to listen in silence while an elder speaks whether in praise or blame; in all things I have taught you to submit yourself as a flower submits to sun and rain alike. “For your husband I have taught you how to decorate your person, how to speak to him with eyes and expression but without words, how to—but these things you will understand when the hour comes and you are alone with him.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from East Wind: West Wind
“I wish to produce the fruit of my brain for my country’s good. A mere dog may fill the earth with the fruit of his body!”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from East Wind: West Wind
“But I am fearful of it because I hear she is learned in the Four Books, and learning has never accompanied beauty in women.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from East Wind: West Wind
“Learn the good that you can of the foreign people and reject the unsuitable.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from East Wind: West Wind
“Je suis comme un pont fragile, reliant à travers l'infini le passé et le présent. Je serre la main maternelle. Je ne peux pas la laisser échapper, car sans moi ma mère serait seule.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from East Wind: West Wind
“On croirait qu'il y a en elle deux personnes : l'une silencieuse, lointaine, même un peu taciturne, l'autre très gaie, mais d'une gaieté trop forcée pour être de la vraie joie.”
― Pearl S. Buck, quote from East Wind: West Wind
Pearl S. Buck
Born place: in Hillsboro, West Virginia, The United States
Born date June 26, 1892
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“Remembering is easy. It's forgetting that's hard.”
― Brodi Ashton, quote from Everneath
“Six bad hombres have tried to kill Ramos. Ramos went to all six funerals, just in case any of the bereaved wanted to take a shot at revenge. None of them did. He calls his Uzi “Mi Esposa”—my wife. He’s thirty-two years old. Within hours he has in custody the three policemen who picked up Ernie Hidalgo. One of them is the chief of the Jalisco State Police. Ramos tells Art, “We can do this the fast way or the slow way.” Ramos takes two cigars from his shirt pocket, offers one to Art and shrugs when he refuses it. He takes a long time to light the cigar, rolling it so that the tip lights evenly, then takes a long pull and raises his black eyebrows at Art. The theologians are right, Art thinks—we become what we hate. Then he says, “The fast way.” Ramos says. “Come back in a little while.” “No,” Art says. “I’ll do my part.” “That’s a man’s answer,” Ramos says. “But I don’t want a witness.”
― Don Winslow, quote from The Power of the Dog
“Why do we bury our dead?” His nose was dented in at the bridge like a sphinx; the cause of which I could only imagine had been a freak archaeological accident.
I thought about my parents. They had requested in their will that they be buried side by side in a tiny cemetery a few miles from our house. “Because it’s respectful?”
He shook his head. “That’s true, but that’s not the reason we do it.”
But that was the reason we buried people, wasn’t it? After gazing at him in confusion, I raised my hand, determined to get the right answer. “Because leaving people out in the open is unsanitary.”
Mr. B. shook his head and scratched the stubble on his neck.
I glared at him, annoyed at his ignorance and certain that my responses were correct. “Because it’s the best way to dispose of a body?”
Mr. B. laughed. “Oh, but that’s not true. Think of all the creative ways mass murderers have dealt with body disposal. Surely eating someone would be more practical than the coffin, the ceremony, the tombstone.”
Eleanor grimaced at the morbid image, and the mention of mass murderers seemed to wake the rest of the class up. Still, no one had an answer. I’d heard Mr. B. was a quack, but this was just insulting. How dare he presume that I didn’t know what burials meant? I’d watched them bury my parents, hadn’t I? “Because that’s just what we do,” I blurted out. “We bury people when they die. Why does there have to be a reason for everything?”
“Exactly!” Mr. B. grabbed the pencil from behind his ear and began gesticulating with it. “We’ve forgotten why we bury people.
“Imagine you’re living in ancient times. Your father dies. Would you randomly decide to put him inside a six-sided wooden box, nail it shut, then bury it six feet below the earth? These decisions aren’t arbitrary, people. Why a six-sided box? And why six feet below the earth? And why a box in the first place? And why did every society throughout history create a specific, ritualistic way of disposing of their dead?”
No one answered.
But just as Mr. B. was about to continue, there was a knock on the door. Everyone turned to see Mrs. Lynch poke her head in. “Professor Bliss, the headmistress would like to see Brett Steyers in her office. As a matter of urgency.”
Professor Bliss nodded, and Brett grabbed his bag and stood up, his chair scraping against the floor as he left.
After the door closed, Mr. B. drew a terrible picture of a mummy on the board, which looked more like a hairy stick figure. “The Egyptians used to remove the brains of their dead before mummification. Now, why on earth would they do that?”
There was a vacant silence.
“Think, people! There must be a reason. Why the brain? What were they trying to preserve?”
When no one answered, he answered his own question.
“The mind!” he said, exasperated. “The soul!”
As much as I had planned on paying attention and participating in class, I spent the majority of the period passing notes with Eleanor. For all of his enthusiasm, Professor Bliss was repetitive and obsessed with death and immortality. When he faced the board to draw the hieroglyphic symbol for Ra, I read the note Eleanor had written me.
Who is cuter?
A. Professor Bliss
B. Brett Steyers
C. Dante Berlin
D. The mummy
I laughed. My hand wavered between B and C for the briefest moment. I wasn’t sure if you could really call Dante cute. Devastatingly handsome and mysterious would be the more appropriate description. Instead I circled option D. Next to it I wrote Obviously! and tossed it onto her desk when no one was looking.”
― Yvonne Woon, quote from Dead Beautiful
“Ive chosen my path - and right or wrong, it's the one I tread.”
― Joseph Delaney, quote from Curse of the Bane
“You are all too rich to be happy, child. For must not each of you be the constitutions of your family marry to be still richer? People who know in what their main excellence consists are not to be blamed (are they?) for cultivating and improving what they think most valuable? Is true happiness any part of your family-view?—So far from it, that none of your family but yourself could be happy were they not rich. So let them fret on, grumble and grudge, and accumulate; and wondering what ails them that they have not happiness when they have riches, think the cause is want of more; and so go on heaping up till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner!”
― Samuel Richardson, quote from Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady
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