She Who Became the Sun

Destroying what someone else cherished never brought back what you yourself had lost. All it did was spread grief like a contagion.

However tired I am, however hard it is: I know I can keep going, because I’m alive.

What someone is means nothing about what kind of person they are. Truth is in actions.

Denying desire only made yourself vulnerable to those who were smart enough to see what you couldn't even acknowledge to yourself.

The greater the desire, the greater the suffering, and now she desired greatness itself.

He had done what he had to do, and in doing so he had destroyed the world.

Learn to want something for yourself, Ma Xiuying. Not what someone says you should want. Not what you think you should want. Don’t go through life thinking only of duty. When all we have are these brief spans between our nonexistences, why not make the most of the life you’re living now? The price is worth it.

If you want a fate other than what Heaven gave you, you have to want that other fate. You have to struggle for it. Suffer for it.

She didn't just want greatness. She wanted the world.

But you know what's worse than suffering? Not suffering, because you're not even alive to feel it.

How could her body be a woman’s body, if it didn’t house a woman?

She saw someone who seemed neither male nor female, but another substance entirely: something wholly and powerfully of its own kind. The promise of difference, made real.

I can do this. I can learn. I can survive.

The body became used to exercise, particular sounds and sensations, or even physical pain. But it was strange how shame was something you never became inured to: each time hurt just as much as the first.

Inside her there was only the perfect, blank brightness of belief and desire. Desire is the cause of all suffering. The greater the desire, the greater the suffering, and now she desired greatness itself. With all her will, she directed the thought to Heaven and the watching statues: Whatever suffering it takes, I can bear it.

She was grieving her life as she never had before, and it was all this monk's fault for having conjured the impossible fantasy of a world in which she was free to desire.

Don’t look down as you’re flying, or you’ll realize the impossibility of it and fall.

People said that a single day without a dear friend could feel like three autumns.

You never realized that it wasn’t your name they were going to call, exhorting you to reign for ten thousand years. It was mine

A woman gambles all of herself, body and future, when she marries. That's more courageous than any risk a bureaucrat takes when it concerns only his face, or his wealth

there are no kind solutions to cruel situations

The memory of Esen's fingertips on his face seared him. Part of him yearned for the debasement of that touch again, and an equal part hated Esen for having called pleasure and submissiveness out of him without even realizing what he had done. Eash part hurt. The combined pain of them crushed him.

Pure emotions are the luxury of children and animals,

Where's the fun in suffering by yourself?" Xu Da said in his good-natured way. Surprised, Zhu realized he was probably her friend. She'd never had a friend before. But she wasn't sure suffering could be shared, even with one's friends. Watching her father and brother die, digging their graves, kneeling for four days in front of the monastery: all of them had been acts of exquisite aloneness. She knew that when she came down to it, you survived and died alone.

The residence’s doors banged and slammed as if by angry ghosts, and Ouyang felt his ancestors’ eyes upon him as he ate with the son of his family’s murderer, the person he held dearest in all the world.

Why aren’t you happier? I’m just being who you’ve always thought I was. I’m giving you the ending you believed in.” He lingered for a moment, then pulled back. “Goodbye, brother.

The girl was startled by her own anger. Heaven had promised Chongba life enough to achieve greatness, and he had given up that life as easily as breathing. He had chosen to become nothing. The girl wanted to scream at him. Her fate had always been nothing. She had never had a choice.

Nobody will ever end me. I’ll be so great that no one will be able to touch me, or come near me, for fear of becoming nothing

It would be the biggest gamble of her life. But if she wanted greatness - she was going to have to stand up and claim it.

Most strong-willed people never understand that will alone isn't enough to guarantee their survival. They don't realize that even more so than will, survival depends upon an understanding of people and power