Tom Lin > Quotes

“You asked me,” the prophet said, “what good an elegy is when sung by a man who cannot remember. But all men cannot remember.” His voice was clear and lucid. “An elegy is good merely because it is sung. And when its words are lost, it is still good, because it is sung. And when its melody, too, has been washed away, it is still good, because it was once sung.” He rose to his feet and cast his blind eyes over the men sitting round the fire. “To sing at all is to labor, and it is only by labor that men living recall the shadows of men passed. This is what it means to remember.” At this the prophet turned and was swallowed up by the darkness.”
― Tom Lin, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu

“Remembrance is the burden of the body, not of the mind. True memory is not to be recollected. It is a rite to be performed.”
― Tom Lin, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu

“A mistake. He should not have remembered. It was dangerous to go lurking in memory. The new erases the old where they meet.”
― Tom Lin, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu