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41 " To mourn then, I thought, is to feel your own nothingness. "
― Vaddey Ratner , In the Shadow of the Banyan
42 " I had learned not to be afraid of owls and other night creatures. Animals are not like people. If you leave them alone, they won't hurt you. But people will, even if you've done no wrong. They hurt you with their guns, their words, their lies and broken promises, their sorrow. "
43 " Animals are not like people. If you leave them alone, they won't hurt you. But people will, even if you've done no wrong. "
44 " It’s a gift to be able to imagine heaven, and a rebirth to actually glimpse it. "
45 " The United States bombed Indochina with three times the tonnage of bombs used in all of World War II; Cambodia alone was hit with three times more tonnage than Japan. "
― Vaddey Ratner , Music of the Ghosts
46 " If I was to survive my uprooting and transplantation, I must grow and stretch myself as a young rice shoot would. I must rise above the mire and muck, the savagery of my environment, while appearing to thrive on it. "
47 " There exists such a place, such sacred space. You have only to envision it, to dare to dream it. It is within you, within all of us. "
48 " Bury me and I'll thrive as countless insects. I bend neither to your weapon nor will.Even as you trample upon my bones I cower not under your soulless tread, or fear your shadow casting upon my grave. "
49 " No matter what ugliness and destruction you may witness around you, I want you always to believe that the tiniest glimpse of beauty here and there is a reflection of the god's abode. It is real, Raami. There exists such a place, such sacred space. You have only to envision it, to dare to dream it. It is within you, within all of us. "
50 " Words, they are out rise and our fall, Raami. Perhaps this is why I prefer not to say too much. "
51 " Lie even when you're scared-especially when you're scared. "
52 " I am a peasant, you stupid boy! I've worked this land longer then you've been alive, and if that doesn't mean anything to you, I'll cut you up and throw you in the rice paddy, and you can rot, and the Organization will have to deal with me! "
53 " If they want you and you've committed no crime, this is what they'll accuse you of-working for the CIA. I suppose it's something you can't disprove, even if you try. "
54 " Poetry is like that, Papa said. It can come to you in an intake of breath, vanish again in the blink of an eye, and first all you'll have isA line weaving through your mindLike the tail of a child's kitUnfettered by reason or rhyme.Then, he said, comes the rest-the kite, the story itself. A complete entity. "