Asia Quotes

“People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.”
― Roman Payne, Crepuscule

“I've read hundreds of books about China over the decades. I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind.”
― Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal

“It is not power that corrupts but fear.”
― Aung San Suu Kyi

“In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren't enough euros to go around. "The entire EU is short on coins."

And I say, "Really?" because there are plenty of them in Germany. I'm never asked for exact change in Spain or Holland or Italy, so I think the real problem lies with the Parisian cashiers, who are, in a word, lazy. Here in Tokyo they're not just hard working but almost violently cheerful. Down at the Peacock, the change flows like tap water. The women behind the registers bow to you, and I don't mean that they lower their heads a little, the way you might if passing someone on the street. These cashiers press their hands together and bend from the waist. Then they say what sounds to me like "We, the people of this store, worship you as we might a god.”
― David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act which deprived a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“...a society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.”
― Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia

“Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops — Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia. And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they — Darius!”
― Alexander the Great

“In your name, the family name is at last because it's the family name that lasts.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Asia is an entertainment, Europe is a dream, America is an imprisonment and Rest is a nightmare.”
― Santosh Kalwar

“Nobody gives way to anybody. Everyone just angles, points, dives directly toward his destination, pretending it is an all-or-nothing gamble. People glare at one another and fight for maneuvering space. All parties are equally determined to get the right-of-way--insist on it. They swerve away at the last possible moment, giving scant inches to spare. The victor goes forwards, no time for a victory grin, already engaging in another contest of will. Saigon traffic is Vietnamese life, a continuous charade of posturing, bluffing, fast moves, tenacity and surrenders.”
― Andrew X. Pham, Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

“Seeing the name Hillary in a headline last week—a headline about a life that had involved real achievement—I felt a mouse stirring in the attic of my memory. Eventually, I was able to recall how the two Hillarys had once been mentionable in the same breath. On a first-lady goodwill tour of Asia in April 1995—the kind of banal trip that she now claims as part of her foreign-policy 'experience'—Mrs. Clinton had been in Nepal and been briefly introduced to the late Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest. Ever ready to milk the moment, she announced that her mother had actually named her for this famous and intrepid explorer. The claim 'worked' well enough to be repeated at other stops and even showed up in Bill Clinton's memoirs almost a decade later, as one more instance of the gutsy tradition that undergirds the junior senator from New York.

Sen. Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary and his partner Tenzing Norgay did not ascend Mount Everest until 1953, so the story was self-evidently untrue and eventually yielded to fact-checking. Indeed, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton named Jennifer Hanley phrased it like this in a statement in October 2006, conceding that the tale was untrue but nonetheless charming: 'It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add.'

Perfect. It worked, in other words, having been coined long after Sir Edmund became a bankable celebrity, but now its usefulness is exhausted and its untruth can safely be blamed on Mummy.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Protestantism harbors within it certain elements – just as the Great Reformer himself harbored such elements within his personality. I am thinking here of a sentimentality, a trancelike self-hypnosis that is not European, that is foreign and hostile to our active hemisphere’s law of life. Just look at him, this Luther. Look at the portraits, both as a young man and later. What a skull, what cheekbones, what a strange set to the eyes. My friend, that is Asia. I would be surprised, would be astonished, if Wendish-Slavic-Sarmatian blood was not at work there, and if it was not this massive phenomenon of a man – and who would deny him that – who proved to be a fatal weight placed on one of the two precariously balanced scales of your nation, on the Eastern scale, which caused – and still causes – the Western scale to fly heavenward.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“Il senso della ricerca sta nel cammino fatto e non nella meta; il fine del viaggiare è il viaggiare stesso e non l'arrivare.”
― Tiziano Terzani, In Asia

“No, I am not imagining a book-burning, warmongering, anti-intellectual fascist regime – in my plan, there is no place for re ghters who light up the Homers and Lady Murasakis and Cao Xueqins stashed under your bed – because, for starters, I’m not banning literature per se. I’m banning the reading of literature. Purchasing and collecting books and other forms of literature remains perfectly legitimate as long as you don’t peruse the literature at hand.”
― Kyoko Yoshida

“This book collects the experience of my trip to Nepal, an unforgettable journey that allows you to see the world with different eyes.An itinerary started and ended in Kathmandu, accompanied for most of the journey by the local guide Mahesh who, in addition to giving me information on the places, also spoke to me about the history of the country and the divinities.I was able to admire extraordinary places from Pokhara to Dhulikel, visiting Buddhist monasteries and sacred places, but also seeing the devastation of the earthquake in Bhaktapur.The book was created as a sort of guide-diary (with some photos too), narrating my feelings and the places I visited, without neglecting some small curiosity and a tragicomic event that happened to me.”
― Simone M. Albore, Nepal, between spirituality and culture: Twelve days in the land of the great peaks

“Questo libro raccoglie l'esperienza del mio viaggio in Nepal, un viaggio indimenticabile che mi ha permesso di vedere il mondo con occhi diversi.
Un itinerario iniziato e terminato a Kathmandu, accompagnato per gran parte del viaggio dalla guida locale Mahesh che oltre a darmi informazioni sui luoghi, mi parlava anche della storia del Paese e le divinità.
Ho potuto ammirare posti straordinari da Pokhara a Dhulikel, visitando monasteri buddisti/induisti e luoghi sacri, ma anche vedere le devastazioni causate del terremoto del 2015.
Il libro è stato creato come una sorta di guida-diario (con anche qualche foto), narrando le mie sensazioni e i luoghi visitati, senza trascurare qualche piccola curiosità e un evento a dir poco tragicomico.”
― Simone M. Albore, Nepal, tra spiritualità e cultura: Dodici giorni nella terra delle grandi vette

“Eropa serasa tak punya daya, sebab hanya bangsa Asia dan Tuhan-lah yang mampu mencipta kenikmatan sebegitu rupa, yang tak bisa diucap melalui kata, ibarat dekap hangat dua hati yang melantunkan nyanyi mistis.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Voyage de Paris à Java / Un drame au bord de la mer

“Even if you have to climb mountains as high as the Himalayas in Asia, with God by your side, you will experience wonders.”
― Gift Gugu Mona, Coming to Grips with the Mountains and Valleys of This World

“We die in each moment, and an imposter replaces us. The hauntings of our old selves trail behind, begging to be remembered, willing to say anything—to lie, if only by omission—to keep from being swallowed by the dark.”
― Brant von Goble, Kǒngmíng: A Memoir

“A nation disappears first in its stories, long before it disappears from the map.”
― Abdulla Yasir, The Maldives We Remember: A Visual History of a Vanishing World

“Ja! Tina no GONG SI FA CAI
Happy New Year
SAKUSEN GO!

GO GO SSING!

What the heck language are we speaking?”
― Harmony Becker, Himawari House

“Stupid plowahs. Dey always make me peel like I'm supposed to be in lobe, and I'm like, wait, should I be in lobe?....

Let's go home lah. The flowers are stressing me out.

Good idea.”
― Harmony Becker, Himawari House

“If my mom came here, she would clean and cook like crazy, and da whole time she be yelling at me.

"Such simple things also don't know ah? Dunno how to cook, your room so dirty, summore full of empty cup noodles! Dis why you fail your exam. You have no discipline, cannot even take care of yourself!"

Then she would cry about how I abandoned her, buy me a bunch of presents, and go home.”
― Harmony Becker, Himawari House

“There is no shame in owning a noodle shop. In Japan, good ramen chefs are respected like good sushi chefs. You can choose one thing you love to do, and work hard at it. If you make good food and you respect your customers, that is enough. And try to make it better every day”
― Janet Tay, Early Mornings at the Laksa Cafe

“Sometimes, we have to destroy everything so we can rebuild, you know? Sometimes, that is the only way to start anew”
― Janet Tay, Early Mornings at the Laksa Cafe

“He'd built our family name from the ground up, and in one night, I'd almost torn it to pieces. It was almost funny how fragile legacy could be”
― Samantha Chong, Prodigal Tiger

“We tell ourselves stories that we wish were true. We rewrite the narrative to become the heroes. Then we pass these stories down, until those stories become facts. Until they become tenets. Until they become legends that whole families build their reputation on”
― Samantha Chong, Prodigal Tiger

“Everyone gets a choice to tell their own story, no matter their last name. What legacy do you want to have for yourself?”
― Samantha Chong, Prodigal Tiger

“Children shouldn't pay for their elders' mistakes”
― Samantha Chong, Prodigal Tiger

“It is not a choice most people make, for good reason. However, this is the job I have chosen. I like stories, and how they help people find answers”
― Samantha Chong, Prodigal Tiger