maddy > maddy's Quotes

“It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“He has finally managed to achieve what Willem had always hoped for him; all it took was Willem being taken from him”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“I don’t know if you all missed me, but I haven’t thought about any of you at all.”

“…”

There were indeed many heavenly officials in the heavens who secretly thought about him everyday, but hearing that Hua Cheng didn’t think about them at all, they all chanted heavenly blessings: thank you thank you thank you please continue to never think of us.”
― Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

“Xie Lian whipped his head over, and a biting chill flashed before his face. He straightened and stated solemnly:

“You ask who I am? LISTEN WELL! ——I, AM THE EMINENT HIGHNESS THE CROWN PRINCE! You riotous radicals, BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!”

His voice boomed like thunder in clear skies. There were actually a few who almost dropped to their knees, and didn’t snap out of it until their companions pulled them up.

“What are you doing? Are you actually kneeling?”

“Th-that’s weird, I did it before I realized it…”

Xie Lian proclaimed sharply:

“I, AM OVER EIGHT HUNDRED. OLDER THAN ALL OF YOU COMBINED. I’VE CROSSED MORE BRIDGES THAN ALL THE ROADS YOU’VE WALKED.

“I, POSSESS SHRINES AND TEMPLES ACROSS THIS LAND; MY DEVOTEES AND WORSHIPPERS ARE SPREAD TO ALL FOUR SEAS. IF YOU DON’T KNOW MY NAME, IT’S BECAUSE YOU ARE IGNORANT AND UNLEARNED OF THE WORLD!

“I, DO NOT WORSHIP GODS.

“I, AM GOD!”

When the mob heard this speech, that was so shameless yet spoken with an incomparably impressive air, they were all stunned, and dropped their jaws.

“…HUH???”

Xie Lian made up all that nonsense because he was waiting for this very moment. He flung that plate in his hand, and all those little white meatballs shot out through the air like iron pellets, scattering in all directions. Without any misses, they were hurled right into the open mouths of all those people in shock. Then he wiped away his sweat.

“Will everyone please forget everything I just said? I’m actually only just a scrap collector!”
― Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

“Hua Cheng quietly sighed, extended his arms, and once again folded him into his embrace. "Your Highness, I've always watched you."

This was the second time he had said this, but his voice was softer than before. Xie Lian clutched the red robes at his chest, asking, his mind blank, "I know, I know. But... what should I do now?"

Hua Cheng's long and slender fingers gently combed through Xie Lian's mussed hair. "Then, Your Highness, do you know why I refuse to leave this world?"

Xie Lian couldn't understand why Hua Cheng could still be so calm at a time like this, he was panicking so hard he was trembling. But, while feeling lost, he still simple-mindedly asked, "Why?"

Hua Cheng replied quietly, "Because I have a beloved who is still in this world."

Hearing this, Xie Lian was slightly stunned. He seemed to have heard this somewhere before.

Hua Cheng continued, "My beloved is a brave, noble, and gracious special someone. He's saved my life; I've looked up to him ever since I was young. But, I wanted to catch up to him more, and become and even stronger person for him. Although he might not remember me well. We never really talked. I want to protect him."

He gazed at Xie Lian. "If your dream is to save the common people, then my dream is only you."

"..." Relying on his memory, Xie Lian asked with a trembling voice, "But... you won't... be able to rest in peace... like this...?"

Hua Cheng answered, "I pray to never rest in peace.”
― Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

“Last time, they spent eight hundred years running towards each other. This time, it only took an instant to fall into each other's embrace.”
― Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

“The one standing in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you.”
― Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

“Hua Cheng said quietly, "Your Highness, I understand your everything.

"Your courage, your despair; your kindness, your pain; your resentment, your hate; your intelligence, your foolishness.

"If I could, I would have you use me as your stepping stone, the bridge you take apart after crossing, the corpse bones you need to trample to climb up, the sinner who deserved the butchering of a million knives. But, I know you wouldn't allow it."

(...)

However, Hua Cheng only replied, "To die in battle for you is my greatest honour."

Those words were like a fatal blow. The tears in Xie Lian's eyes could no longer be restrained, and they came pouring out.

Like he was hanging on the thread of his life, he pleaded, "You said you would never leave me."

However, Hua Cheng replied, "There is no banquet in this world that doesn't come to an end."

Xie Lian bowed his head and buried it deep into his chest, his heart and throat in constricted agony, unable to speak.

Yet soon after, he heard Hua Cheng say above him, "But, I will never leave you."

Hearing this, Xie Lian's head shot up.

Hua Cheng said to him, "I will come back. Your Highness, believe me.”
― Mò Xiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 [Tiān Guān Cì Fú]

“It always makes me a little sad when you laugh," Julian went on. "The way it sort of takes you by surprise. I love it, it has that sweet sincerity that's the best part of you, but it still kills me how you never seem to expect it. All I want to do is make you happy, and you're the unhappiest person I've ever met.”
― Micah Nemerever, These Violent Delights

“If you paint a masterpiece and then set it on fire, it still would have mattered. If you know you’ve made something beautiful, who cares how long it lasts.”
― Micah Nemerever, These Violent Delights

“They wanted each other in the way of flesh wanting to knit itself together over a wound.”
― Micah Nemerever, These Violent Delights

“Flowers may bloom time and again, but humans can never relive their youth.”
― Priest, Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang (Novel) Vol. 1

“A person’s youth is as tiny and insignificant as this bean. It disappears in the blink of an eye, never to return. Later you’ll realize just how much time you squandered on useless endeavors.”
― Priest, Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang (Novel) Vol. 1

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life: The Classic Essay Collection on the Creative Process

“Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Are you happy? he once asked Jude (they must have been drunk).

I don't think happiness is for me, Jude had said at last, as if Willem had been offering him a dish he didn't want to eat.

But it's for you, Willem.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“I’m lonely,” he says aloud, and the silence of the apartment absorbs the words like blood soaking into cotton.

He is so lonely that he sometimes feels it physically, a sodden clump of dirty laundry pressing against his chest. He cannot unlearn the feeling.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life