Shan Sa > Quotes

“The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“Endless moons, an opaque universe, thunder, tornadoes, the quaking earth. Rare moments of peace; forehead up against my knees, arms around my head, I thought, I listened, I longed not to exist. But life was there, a transparent pearl, a star revolving slowly on its own axis.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle like a game of go. I will take hold of all the pain and snuff it out.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“Years have passed and how I am anxiously watching the twilight of my childhood, quietly sinking, never to rise again.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“Heroes are damned. No mortal conquers Death.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“I succeeded in using my charms like a weapon; I learned to play with other's hearts and to master my own desires.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“Dying is so simple. A fleeting moment of suffering. In the blink of an eye you are over the threshold, into another world. No more pain, no more fears. You sleep so well there.
Dying is like rubbing snow together, setting fire to a whole winter of cold and ice.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“would you dare to love me?”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“Tomorrow we will be nothing but earth and dust.
Who will remember the love a soldier once knew?”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“To other women the choice of clothes was a form of ingenious exhibition, a shameless seduction. To me, dresses were like a breastplate that I put on to set off to war against this life.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“I notice the silvery hair at his temples with a tinge of sadness. Why do parents grow old? Life is a castle of lies slowly dismantled by the passage of time. I regret not spending more time looking at the people I love.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“I have been brought up in a world dominated by honor. I have known neither crime, poverty, nor betrayal, and here I taste hatred for the first time: it is sublime, like a thirst for justice and revenge."
-the girl who played go”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“Out on the street I start to run; I need to breathe in this life, the trees, the warmth of my town. I will be able to control my own fate and I will know how to be happy. Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle . . .”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“The winter light, tinted by the bright colors in the street, plays on the go-board. All these festivities cut me off from the rest of the world. My loneliness is like a bolt of crimson silk stowed in the bottom of a wooden chest.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“I splash my head with ice-cold water and turn to face the mirror. When my image appears I instinctively look away.
Is there a truth on the other side that we do not want to see?”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“Sự si mê của đàn ông tàn lụi nhanh hơn nhan sắc đàn bà”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“The world in which we live is no more real than a moon beam reflected in water drawn from the palm of the hand...”
― Shan Sa.

“. . . I have witnessed the strength of our people driven from their own land. The tenacious march south is like a silent protest against death. In this tidal wave of men and woman a hatred mingles with hope. And this furious force of will that has infected me too will carry me to the very end of my own lonely progress.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“Inside its crumbling walls the house is riddled with bullet holes, and in its garden only the crimson dahlias still hold their heads high. Jing is lying on a chaise longue [sic] playing with his bird.
'I thought you were in prison.'
He looks up, his eyes filled with hate and desire.
'You are my prison.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“Love has been buried forever under the leaves at my feet. I lie down on the ground and rest my head on my bag. The grass tickles my arms where I bend the stalks under my neck.
I want to sleep.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“I am like them-I want life. I want to go back to Manchuria, to find my house and my go table. I will return to the Square of a Thousand Winds and wait for my Stranger. I know he will come ... one afternoon ... as he did that first time.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“In the closed world of the gynaeceum, despite the gardens and parkland extending beyong the horizon, despite the insurmountable walls separating pavillions and palaces, the tangled web of our fate was inescapable. Why did these women love each other to the point of madness? Why did they loathe one another so vehemently, and why did sworn enemies feel such horror and fascination for one another? Why should furious hate become obsession, then intoxication and the very reason to live?

Because love and hate were the two heads of the demon.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“Every man has to die. Choosing oblivion is the only way of triumphing over this.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“A great emptiness had been carved out of my soul; I watched all the effervescence of the world with a derisive smile.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“I am terrified by the dizzying pleasure of it: I am both here and over there; I am be and I am no longer me!
Am I already dead?”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go

“I had lost some of my naivete and gained strength. These women with their pointless scheming could not contain me, and I watched the volatile world of the gynaeceum with a detached eye. The Forbidden City had buried my youth, and in the monastery, I had died and come back to life. Friends, enemies and mistresses had all disappeared. I was a ghost from a lost world, still going from one season to the next and still living for one man alone.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“In our time women can demonstrate prowess in a thousand ways. Long ago the great Princess Sun of Ping fought for her father, the August Sovereign. At her funeral, His Majesty called for the trumpets and drums to be sounded, an honor reserved for men. My dear, from this day you must dress her as a boy. Give her an education worthy of her own determination.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“Men’s strengths go hand in hand with their weaknesses. That is why there is no such thing as an invincible warrior, and why heroes die.”
― Shan Sa, Empress

“- Как можеш да разбереш дали наистина си влюбен? Какво чувстваш?
- Най-напред забравяш за света около теб. Семейството, приятелите стават невидими. Ден и нощ мислиш само за един мъж. Когато го видиш, той изпълва очите ти със светлина. Когато не го виждаш, образът му разяжда сърцето ти. Непрекъснато се питаш какво прави той, къде се намира. Измисляш си свой живот, живееш единствено за него: очите ти гледат за него, ушите ти слушат за него.
Лунна перла отпива от чая си и продължава:
- През този първи етап всеки от двамата не знае за чувствата на другия. Това е най-болезненият момент. Сетне те разтварят сърцата си и за момент изпитват безумно щастие.
Сестра ми оставя ръкоделието и погледът се зарейва в пространството:
- Но след хубавото време идва бурята. Изведнъж влюбените попадат в мрак. Бродят из него пипнешком, пълзейки. Остаряват. Ще видиш, сестрице. Когато бъдеш обичана и обичаш, ще откриеш болката от живота върху нажежена до бяло скара. Вече в нищо няма да бъдеш сигурна.”
― Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go