Quotes from The Debt of Tears

Cao Xueqin ·  400 pages

Rating: (423 votes)


“The mighty sturgeon has his pool; The stork upon the dam makes his habitation. Fish in scaly armour, Birds in serried plumes, find protection. In my distress I question that inscrutable expanse: O bowels of earth! O boundless sky! Will ye not hearken to my cry? Above, the twinkling Milky Way; The air cold, Slanting moonlight, The water-clock sunk past midnight. My restless heart grieves still;”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Debt of Tears


“No remedy but love Can make the lovesick well; Only the hand that tied the knot Can loose the tiger’s bell.”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Debt of Tears


“There was a peal of laughter from the girls. Then, before anyone could say a word, the line was seen to move a fraction. A bite at last! The sage yanked in for all he was worth. The rod crashed into a protruding rock and broke clean in two.”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Debt of Tears


“There was a peal of laughter from the girls. Then, before anyone could say a word, the line was seen to move a fraction. A bite at last! The sage yanked in for all he was worth. The rod crashed into a protruding rock and broke clean in two. The”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Debt of Tears


“She walked indoors, and staring once more at her orchids, thought to herself: ‘Flowers have their spring-time, a time for fresh blossoms and young leaves. I am young, but frail as the willow that dreads the first breath of autumn… If all turns out for the best, I may grow stronger yet. But if not, my fate will be like that of the fallen petals at spring’s end, driven by the rain and tossed in the wind…”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Debt of Tears



About the author

Cao Xueqin
Born place: Nanjing, China
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
― Jon Krakauer, quote from Into the Wild


“Africa.
That bird came from Africa.
But you mustn't cry for that bird, Paulie, because after a while it forgot about how the veldt smelled at noonday, and the sounds of the wildebeests at the waterhole, and the high acidic smell of the ieka-ieka trees in the great clearing north of the Big road. After awhile it forgot the cerise color of the sun dying behind Kilimanjaro. After awhile it only knew the muddy, smogged-out sunsets of Boston, that was all it remembered and all it wanted to remember. After awhile it didn't want to go back anymore, and if someone took it back and set it free it would only crouch in one place, afraid and hurting and homesick in two unknown and terribly ineluctable directions until something came along and killed it.
'Oh Africa, oh, shit,' he said in a trembling voice.”
― Stephen King, quote from Misery


“Compassion was the most important, perhaps the sole law of human existence.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Idiot


“For the first time, I had been struck by the excitement of the traveler who looks history in her subtle face.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, quote from The Historian


“The only advice I can give you is what you're telling yourself. Only, maybe you're too scared to listen.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Neverwhere


Interesting books

Celebrity in Death
(18.7K)
Celebrity in Death
by J.D. Robb
The Before Now and After Then
(410)
The Before Now and A...
by Peter Monn
Regency Buck
(7.3K)
Regency Buck
by Georgette Heyer
Wizards at War
(4.9K)
Wizards at War
by Diane Duane
The Book of Embraces
(4.2K)
The Book of Embraces
by Eduardo Galeano
The Year of Yes
(1.4K)
The Year of Yes
by Maria Dahvana Headley

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.