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Noble House (Asian Saga, #5) QUOTES

Noble House (Asian Saga, #5) QUOTES

1 " He took a deep breath of air. Once again he caught a strangeness on the wind, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither odor nor perfume—just strange, and curiously exciting. “Superintendent, what’s that smell? Casey noticed it too, the moment Sven opened the door.” Armstrong hesitated. Then he smiled. “That’s Hong Kong’s very own, Mr. Bartlett. It’s money. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

2 " But they’re as Communist as Russia. They went to war against us when we were only trying to protect freedom in South Korea. We weren’t going to attack them. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

3 " an able man has many burdens. As I’m abler than most I have to sweat more than most. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

4 " All gods bear witness! The Jade Gate and the One-Eyed Monk are truly yin and yang, truly everlasting, truly godlike, both insatiable however much one consumes the other. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

5 " kith or kin lust for power as others do. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

6 " The talk had turned to business, and in the few short hours she had learned more about Hong Kong techniques than through all the reading she had done. More and more it was clear that unless you were on the inside, real power and real riches would escape you. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

7 " The British. We have proved beyond all doubt we’re to be trusted, we can govern, and, by and large, our bureaucracy’s incorruptible. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

8 " When the Dragons belch, all Hong Kong defecates. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

9 " Nothing is of more importance to the state than the quality of its spies. It is ten thousand times cheaper to pay the best spies lavishly than even a tiny army poorly. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

10 " the motor industry, because of its countless allied industries, being the core of any capitalist society. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

11 " Wildcat strikes are the way of the future. With wildcats we can get around union hierarchies without disrupting existing unionism. Our unions’re fragmented. Deliberately. Fifty men can be a separate union and that union can dominate thousands—and so long as there’s never a secret ballot, the few will always rule the many! "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

12 " Malayan. It means ‘ashamed.’” He smiled to himself. It was a contraction of puki mahlu. Mahlu ashamed, puki a Golden Gulley. Malays grant feelings to that part of a woman: hunger, sadness, kindness, rapaciousness, hesitancy, shame, anger—anything and everything. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

13 " Changi changed everyone, changed values permanently. For instance, it gave you a dullness about death—we saw too much of it to have the same sort of meaning to outsiders, to normal people. We’re a generation of dinosaurs, we the few who survived. I suppose anyone who goes to war, any war, sees life with different eyes if they end up in one piece. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

14 " A lot of bull that’s worshipped as the be-all and end-all of existence. So much of ‘normal, civilized’ life is bull that you can’t imagine it. For us ex-Changi-ites—we’re lucky, we’re cleansed, we know what life is really all about. What frightens you, doesn’t frighten me, what frightens me, you’d laugh at. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

15 " How could such a pretty girl become known as the Hag, she wondered. It must be hateful to become old in face and body when you’re young at heart and still strong and tough—so unfair for a woman. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

16 " Remember, child,” her father had drummed into her, “remember that advice, good advice, comes from unexpected places at unexpected times. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

17 " Our writers have always pointed the way for us, Mr. Grey, they’ve formed our thinking and feeling, Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Chekhov, Bunin …” He added with pride, “Writers with us are pathfinders. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

18 " After all those horrors at Changi, you don’t detest them?” After a pause Peter Marlowe shook his head. “I don’t detest anyone. Even Grey. It takes all of my mind and energy to appreciate that I’m alive. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

19 " Any history book will tell them China always crosses her borders to protect her buffer zones when any invader approaches "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)

20 " It’s the right of every red-blooded American to avoid taxes, but not evade them. "

― James Clavell , Noble House (Asian Saga, #5)