Quotes from Empire of the Sun

“Jim knew that he was awake and asleep at the same time, dreaming of the war and yet dreamed of by the war.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

“All around them were the bodies of dead Chinese soldiers. They lined the verges of the roads and floated in the canals, jammed together around the pillars of the bridges. In the trenches between the burial mounds hundreds of dead soldiers sat side by side with their heads against the torn earth, as if they had fallen asleep together in a deep dream of war.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

“After a few minutes Jim was forced to admit that he could recognize none of the constellations. Like everything else since the war, the sky was in a state of change. For all their movements, the Japanese aircraft were its only fixed points, a second zodiac above the broken land.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

“To his surprise he felt a moment of regret, of sadness that his quest for his mother and father would soon be over. As long as he searched for them he was prepared to be hungry and ill, but now that the search had ended he felt saddened by the memory of all he had been through, and of how much he had changed. He was closer now to the ruined battlefields and this fly-infested truck, to the nine sweet potatoes in the sack below the driver's seat, even in a sense to the detention center, than he would ever be again to his house in Amherst Avenue.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

“Dr. Ransome marked the exercises in the algebra textbook and gave him two strips of rice-paper bandage on which to solve the simultaneous equations. As he stood up, Dr. Ransome removed the three tomatoes from Jim's pocket. He laid them on the table by the wax tray.
'Did they come from the hospital garden?'
'Yes.' Jim gazed back frankly at Dr. Ransome. Recently he had begun to see him with a more adult eye. The long years of imprisonment, the constant disputes with the Japanese had made this young physician seem middle-aged. Dr. Ransome was often unsure of himself, as he was of Jim's theft.
'I have to give Basie something whenever I see him.'
'I know. It's a good thing that you're friends with Basie. He's a survivor, though survivors can be dangerous. Wars exist for people like Basie.' Dr. Ransome placed the tomatoes in Jim's hand. 'I want you to eat them, Jim. I'll get you something for Basie.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

“His mother and father were agnostics, and Jim respected devout Christians in the same way that he respected people who were members of the Graf Zeppelin Club or shopped at the Chinese department stores, for their mastery of an exotic foreign ritual. Besides, those who worked hardest for others, like Mrs. Philips and Mrs. Gilmour and Dr. Ransome, often held beliefs that turned out to be correct.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

“Already a sizable traffic jam blocked the Bund. Once again the crush and clutter of Shanghai had engulfed its invaders.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

“Every night in Shanghai those Chinese too poor to pay for the burial of their relatives would launch the bodies from the funeral piers at Nantao, decking the coffins with paper flowers. Carried away on the tide, they came back on the next, returning to the waterfront of Shanghai with all the other debris abandoned by the city. Meadows of paper flowers drifted on running tide and clumped in miniature floating gardens around the old men and women, the young mothers and small children, whose swollen bodies seemed to have been fed during the night by the patient Yangtze.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

“Jim watched them eat, his eyes fixed on every morsel that entered their mouth. When the oldest of the four soldiers had finished he scraped some burnt rice and fish scales from the side of the cooking pot. A first-class private of some forty years, with slow, careful hands, he beckoned Jim forward and handed him his mess tin. As they smoked their cigarettes the Japanese smiled to themselves, watching Jim devour the shreds of fatty rice. It was his first hot food since he had left he hospital, and the heat and greasy flavour stung his gums. Tears swam in his eyes. The Japanese soldier who had taken pity on Jim, recognising that this small boy was starving, began to laugh good-naturedly, and pulled the rubber plug from his metal water-bottle. Jim drank the clear, chlorine-flavoured liquid, so unlike the stagnant water in the taps of the Columbia Road. He choked, carefully swallowed his vomit, and tittered into his hands, grinning at the Japanese. Soon they were all laughing together, sitting back in the deep grass beside the drained swimming-pool.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun

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“And what she hated more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - no more differences in size and belief- differences that became justification for destruction.”
― Ursula Hegi, quote from Stones from the River

“While I pressed the tissue to my face, Beck said, “Can I tell you something? There are a lot of empty boxes in your head, Sam.”
I looked at him, quizzical. Again, it was a strange enough concept to hold my attention.
“There are a lot of empty boxes in there, and you can put things in them.” Beck handed me another tissue for the other side of my face.
My trust of Beck at that point was not yet complete; I remember thinking that he was making a very bad joke that I wasn’t getting. My voice sounded wary, even to me. “What kinds of things?”
“Sad things,” Beck said. “Do you have a lot of sad things in your head?”
“No,” I said.
Beck sucked in his lower lip and released it slowly. “Well, I do.”
This was shocking. I didn’t ask a question, but I tilted toward him.
“And these things would make me cry,” Beck continued. “They used to make me cry all day long.”
I remembered thinking this was probably a lie. I could not imagine Beck crying. He was a rock. Even then, his fingers braced against the floor, he looked poised, sure, immutable.
“You don’t believe me? Ask Ulrik. He had to deal with it,” Beck said. “And so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them.”
“Brain tape?” I suggested, with a little smirk. I was eight, after all.
Beck smiled, a weird private smile that, at the time, I didn’t understand. Now I knew it was relief at eliciting a joke from me, no matter how pitiful the joke was. “Yes, brain tape. And a brain blanket over the top. Now I don’t have to look at those sad things anymore. I could open those boxes sometime, I guess, if I wanted to, but mostly I just leave them sealed up.”
“How did you use the brain tape?”
“You have to imagine it. Imagine putting those sad things in the boxes and imagine taping it up with the brain tape. And imagine pushing them into the side of your brain, where you won’t trip over them when you’re thinking normally, and then toss a blanket over the top. Do you have sad things, Sam?”
I could see the dusty corner of my brain where the boxes sat. They were all wardrobe boxes, because those were the most interesting sort of boxes — tall enough to make houses with — and there were rolls and rolls of brain tape stacked on top. There were razors lying beside them, waiting to cut the boxes and me back open.
“Mom,” I whispered.
I wasn’t looking at Beck, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him swallow.
“What else?” he asked, barely loud enough for me to hear. “The water,” I said. I closed my eyes. I could see it, right there, and I had to force out the next word. “My …” My fingers were on my scars.
Beck reached out a hand toward my shoulder, hesitant. When I didn’t move away, he put an arm around my back and I leaned against his chest, feeling small and eight and broken.
“Me,” I said.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from Forever

“Never let it be said that Harry Dresden is afraid of a dried, dead bug. Creepy or not, I wasn't going to let it ruin my concentration.
So I scooped it up with the corner of the phone book and popped it into the middle drawer of my desk. Out of sight, out of mind.
So I have a problem with creepy, dead, poisonous things. So sue me.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Storm Front

“Whoever said ignorance was bliss was shortsighted.”
― Jeaniene Frost, quote from Destined for an Early Grave

“You watch teenage girls and feel shivers up and down your arms -- those poor creatures don't know the first thing about time or agony or the price they're going to have to pay for just about everything.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Practical Magic

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