Home > Author > Tan Twan Eng
61 " Teacher, as he was called, looked tiny, childlike, and deceptively vulnerable. "
― Tan Twan Eng , The Gift of Rain
62 " none of my children—not one—ever took the easy road; that they strove to keep sanity, reason, and compassion alive and burning in these tragic times. "
63 " The mountains are as I have always remembered them, the first light of the morning melting down their flanks. "
― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists
64 " I can only teach you the way, that is all. What you do with it and what it does to you, those are beyond my influence. "
65 " To have memories, happy or sorrowful, is a blessing, for it shows we have lived our lives without reservation. Do you not agree? "
66 " As though to fortify me she took the letter out and placed it on the table between us. Its pages were folded, yellowed like old skin, the faint tattoo of aged ink that had seeped onto the blank side visible to me. Just like me, I thought, looking at the letter. The life I had lived was folded, only a blank page exposed to the world, emptiness wrapped round the days of my life; faint traces of it could be discerned, but only if you looked closely, very closely. "
67 " 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? "
68 " Peter has a lot of faults — we all do — but love makes you overlook them, and try to see what is good. I couldn’t have done that before — at the first sign of weakness I dropped the men I thought I loved. It’s different now. "
69 " 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
70 " When the First Man and First Woman were banished from their home, Time was also set loose upon the world. "
71 " Je kunt de seizoenen zien als stukjes van de mooiste, transparantste zijde in verschillende kleuren. Los van elkaar zijn ze mooi, maar leg de een boven op de ander, al zijn het alleen maar de randen, en er komt iets speciaals tot stand. Dat geldt ook voor de smalle strook tijd waarin het begin van het ene seizoen het eind van een ander overlapt. "
72 " The noise of insects sizzled in the air, like fat in a smoking wok. "
73 " Yggdrasil is the Tree of Life,’ he says. ‘Its branches cover the world and stretch up to the sky. But it has only three roots. One is submerged in the waters of the Pool of Knowledge. Another in fire. The last root is being devoured by a terrible creature. When two of its roots have been consumed by fire and beast, the tree will fall, and eternal darkness will spread across the world. "
74 " It only takes one letter of the alphabet to change reason to treason. "
75 " A deep fear, so constant now in my life, was like a growth in me. When did I let it enter, steal silently in, and latch on to me? There were days I could hardly breathe, as though my blood, coagulated by fear, could not flow. "
76 " Yes, I could say that I had lived my life, if not to the full then at least almost to the brim. What more could one ask? Rare is the person whose life overflows. I have lived, I have travelled 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? "
77 " I had thought my room was bad enough, but there were even more books in Kon's. "
78 " Yellow and red and white dandelions lit up the sky, pinned there for a few seconds before dribbling away, only to be followed by a blue agapanthus blooming here, a red starfish flaring there. "
79 " One day you will realise that there is no wind, and the flag does not move," he said. "It is only the hearts and minds of men that are restless. "
80 " It was a hot summer’s day, the carp ponds so still the dragonflies seemed mesmerized by their own reflections on the water. "