Tan Twan Eng QUOTES

1 " The mind forgets, but the heart will always remember. And what is the heart's memory but love itself? "

2 " I have lived, I have traveled the world, and now, like a worn-out clock, my life is winding down, the hands slowing, stepping out of the flow of time. If one steps out of time what does one have? Why, the past of course, gradually being worn away by the years as a pebble halted on a riverbed is eroded by the passage of water. "

― Tan Twan Eng

3 " Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analysing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us? "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

4 " It is getting dark. In the low mists over the hills, an orange glow broods, as if the trees are on fire. Bats are flooding out from the hundreds of caves that perforate these mountainsides. I watch them plunge into the mists without any hesitation, trusting in the echoes and silences in which they fly.

Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analyzing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us? "

― Tan Twan Eng

5 " Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

6 " To have memories, happy or sorrowful, is a blessing, for it shows we have lived our lives without reservation. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Gift of Rain

7 " The palest ink will endure beyond the memories of man "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

8 " A raintree bent towards a window in one side of the bungalow, eavesdropping on the conversations that had taken place inside over years. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

9 " Puddles of rainwater glowed like the discarded scales of a dragon. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Gift of Rain

10 " For what is a person without memories? A ghost, trapped between worlds, without an identity, with no future, no past. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

11 " Accept that there are things in this world we can never explain and life will be understandable. That is the irony of life. It is also the beauty of it. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Gift of Rain

12 " I have become a collapsing star, pulling everything around it, even the light, into an ever-expanding void. Once I lose all ability to communicate with the world outside myself, nothing will be left but what I remember. My memories will be like a sandbar, cut off from the shore by the incoming tide. In time they will become submerged, inaccessible to me. The prospect terrified me. For what is a person without memories? A ghost, trapped between worlds, without an identity, with no future, no past. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

13 " That point in time just as the last leaf is about to drop, as the remaining petal is about to fall; that moment captures everything beautiful and sorrowful about life. Mono no aware, the Japanese call it. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

14 " Anything beautiful should be given a name, do you not agree? "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

15 " Die while I can still remember who I am, who I used to be. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

16 " Memories I had locked away have begun to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep, these broken floes drift toward the morning light of remembrance. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

17 " We were like two moths around a candle, I thought, circling closer and closer to the flame, waiting to see whose wings would catch fire first. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

18 " Moments in time when the world is changing bring out the best and the worst in people. "

― Tan Twan Eng

19 " As with all the principles of aikijutsu, you do not meet the force of the strike head-on. You parry, you step to the side to avoid the blow, your redirect the force and unbalance your opponent. It is the same with the ken, the sword. These principles apply to you daily life as well. Never meet a person’s anger directly. Deflect, distract him, even agree with him. Unbalance his mind, and you can lead him anywhere you want. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Gift of Rain

20 " Feel your body expanding as you breathe: that is where we live, in the moments between each inhalation and exhalation. "

― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists

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