Quotes from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“Treasure a handful of dirt from your home,      But love not ten thousand taels of foreign gold.”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“She also bit off a little toe from the child’s left foot to establish a mark of his identity.”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“Don’t go away! Have a taste of old Monkey’s rod!”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“in my opinion those who strive for fame will lose their lives on account of fame; those who live in quest of fortune will perish because of riches; those who have titles sleep embracing a tiger; and those who receive official favors walk with snakes in their sleeves.”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“Canberra and Chicago, but it also allowed us to enjoy several cherished meetings with Professor Liu Ts’un-yan before his passing a few months later. My indebtedness to Professor Liu’s scholarship should be apparent in the introduction”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“In Buddhism, the eight emblems would refer to the eight marks of good fortune on the sole of Buddha’s foot—wheel, conch shell, umbrella, canopy, lots flower, jar, pair of fishes, and mystic signs—which, in turn, were symbols of the organs in Buddha’s body.”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“permission. When I began work on the translation long ago, it was an early and ready decision to dedicate the first volume to my wife and our only”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

“those who have titles sleep embracing a tiger;”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from The Journey to the West, Volume 1

About the author

Popular quotes

“Would it ever, ever leave? I had become used to the ache now; it was with me all the time, and never seemed to lessen. Time was no healer, I decided, but it was a great accommodator.”
― Eva Rice, quote from The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

“Were I to go down into the market-place, armed with the powers of witchcraft, and take a peasant by the shoulders and whisper to him, 'In your lifetime, have you known peace?' wait for his answer, shake his shoulders and transform him into his father, and ask him the same question, and transform him in his turn to his father, I would never hear the word 'Yes,' if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years. I would always hear, 'No, there was fear, there were our enemies without, our rulers within, there was prison, there was torture, there was violent death.”
― Rebecca West, quote from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

“Power is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Bone Clocks

“It was uncanny. You press a button and a man drops dead a hundred meters away. It seemed hollow and remote, falsifying everything. It was a trick of the lenses. The man is an accurate picture. Then he is upside down. Then he is right side up. You shoot at a series of images conveyed to you through a metal tube. The force of a death should be enormous but how can you know what kind of man you’ve killed or who was the braver and stronger if you have to peer through layers of glass that deliver the image but obscure the meaning of the act? War has a conscience or it’s ordinary murder.”
― Don DeLillo, quote from Libra

“This is the way I see it: if you get to know yourself really well, you might discover that deep down inside you’re just a dirty, disgusting, and selfish piece of shit. What if my heart is all rotted out and corrupted? What about that? What am I suppose to do with that information? Just tell me that.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, quote from Last Night I Sang to the Monster

Interesting books

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.