Miranda Sun > Miranda's Quotes

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
― Robert Frost

“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“Isaac was panic over whether to call and the murmured admission that the world was too big and too furious and too much to make sense. He wasn't about to patch my doubts and make me whole; he wasn't going to be my cornerstone; he wasn't the blanket stretched taut to catch me when I fell. He was this nervous kid, playing with matches and dancing around gasoline, and I was this nervous kid, shying back from the firelight, and we were here nervous together, acting like we had it figured out - as if we hadn't already learned what it looked like to see each other pretending.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“Sometimes you go a long time having fooled yourself into thinking that you're as grown-up as you'll ever be, or that you're more mature than the rest of the world thinks you are, and you live in this state of constant self-assurance, and for a while nothing can upset you from this pedestal you've built for yourself, because you imagine yourself to be so capable. And then somebody does something that takes a golf club to your ego, and suddenly you're nine years old again, pieced together from humiliation and gawky youthfulness and childlike ideas like, Somebody please tell me what to do, nobody taught me how to handle this, God, just look at all the things I still don't understand, and you can't muster up the presence of mind to do anything but stand there, stare, silent, sorry.”
― Riley Redgate, Seven Ways We Lie

“We are always moving forward--I can see it now. We are hurtling through our lives. We are never standing still.”
― Riley Redgate, Seven Ways We Lie

“You know what they say. Three things last forever: faith, hope and spite. And the greatest of these is spite.”
― Riley Redgate, Seven Ways We Lie

“Life's not a Greek tragedy.'
After a long second, I shrugged. 'I mean, if you didn't sleep with your mom by mistake, that's fine, but don't go around acting all superior to the rest of us.”
― Riley Redgate, Noteworthy

“What did they say?" Juni asks me over the cafeteria table. "I didn't catch whatever profoundly unnecessary insult it was."

"Ho-livia," I explain over the chatter echoing off the cafeteria ceiling. "It's funny, because ho means whore and also rhymes with the first syllable of my name. Ha-ha. Excellent joke.”
― Riley Redgate, Seven Ways We Lie

“Let's short circuit in the rain. I loved you then, too.”
― Riley Redgate, Final Draft

“I don't want to read your walls ... I don't want to read your hang-ups. I don't want to read skeletal concepts of people who operate without the influence of a limbic system. You are not an archaeologist excavating and presenting old bones. Your work is the connective tissue. Give me some DNA, or don't bother.”
― Riley Redgate, Final Draft

“So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more; and when you stamp your foot, the earth moves slightly off its course. Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in the pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can be really happy. And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Everybody is so terribly sensitive about the things they know best.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and not get wet.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“People can always say I don't look impressive enough, but they can't argue over how strong I am once I punch them in the face.”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“What’s the matter?” my mother snapped. “You sick?” I pulled my body back inside and bumped my head against the window hard enough to make the glass rattle, but the pain was inconsequential right now. “No, I . . . I just needed some fresh air.” She squinted at me. “Are you pregnant?” “What!? No! Why would you even think that?” “Well then if you’re not sick and you’re not pregnant then ANSWER ME WHEN I CALL YOUR NAME!”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“Quentin took a deep breath.

“My true name,” he said, “ . . . is SUN WUKONG.”

A cold wind passed through the open window, rustling my loose papers like tumbleweed.

“I have no idea who that is,” I said.

Quentin was still trying to cement his “look at me being serious” face. It took him a few seconds to realize I wasn’t flipping out over whoever he was.

“The Sun Wukong,” he said, scooping the air with his fingers. “Sun Wukong the Monkey King.”

“I said, I don’t know who that is.”

His jaw dropped. Thankfully his teeth were still normal-size.

“You’re Chinese and you don’t know me?” he sputtered. “That’s like an American child not knowing Batman!”

“You’re Chinese Batman?”

“No! I’m stronger than Batman, and more important, like—like. Tian na, how do you not know who I am!?”

I didn’t know why he expected me to recognize him. He couldn’t have been a big-time actor or singer from overseas. I never followed mainland pop culture, but a lot of the other people at school did; word would have gotten around if we had a celebrity in our midst.

Plus that was a weird stage name. Monkey King? Was that what passed for sexy among the kids these days?”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“I was about as spiritual as a Chicken McNugget.”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“Another flash of light streamed through the windows and then faded. I didn’t feel the need to go outside and check that they were gone. Guanyin really did not screw around when it came to making an exit.

I turned to Quentin. “How much of a dick do you have to be to upset the Goddess of Compassion into leaving without saying goodbye?”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“The sheer amount of effort I was putting into these essays had to add up to something. It would be a violation of thermodynamics if it didn’t.”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“This is bull crap!” I shouted. “I’m tired! I don’t have the energy for this!”

“Genie,” Quentin said. “Please stop telling the swarm of yaoguai how weak you are right now.”

“I don’t want to deal with you!” I hollered at the demons from afar. “Screw everything! Evil wins, are you happy?”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their—

“Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten.

“How far did you get?” Quentin said.

He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment.

I ignored that he’d snuck up on me again, just this once. There was a bigger issue at play.

In the book was an illustration of the group done up in bold lines and bright colors. There was Sun Wukong at the front, dressed in a beggar’s cassock, holding his Ruyi Jingu Bang in one hand and the reins of the Dragon Horse in the other. A scary-looking pig-faced man and a wide-eyed demon monk followed, carrying the luggage. And perched on top of the horse was . . . me.

The artist had tried to give Xuanzang delicate, beatific features and ended up with a rather girly face. By whatever coincidence, the drawing of Sun Wukong’s old master could have been a rough caricature of sixteen-year-old Eugenia Lo from Santa Firenza, California.

“That’s who you think I am?” I said to Quentin.

“That’s who I know you are,” he answered. “My dearest friend. My boon companion. You’ve reincarnated into such a different form, but I’d recognize you anywhere. Your spiritual energies are unmistakable.”

“Are you sure? If you’re from a long time ago, maybe your memory’s a little fuzzy.”

“The realms beyond Earth exist on a different time scale,” Quentin said. “Only one day among the gods passes for every human year. To me, you haven’t been gone long. Months, not centuries.”

“This is just . . . I don’t know.” I took a moment to assemble my words. “You can’t walk up to me and expect me to believe right away that I’m the reincarnation of some legendary monk from a folk tale.”

“Wait, what?” Quentin squinted at me in confusion.

“I said you can’t expect me to go, ‘okay, I’m Xuanzang,’ just because you tell me so.”

Quentin’s mouth opened slowly like the dawning of the sun. His face went from confusion to understanding to horror and then finally to laughter.

“mmmmphhhhghAHAHAHAHA!” he roared. He nearly toppled over, trying to hold his sides in. “HAHAHAHA!”

“What the hell is so funny?”

“You,” Quentin said through his giggles. “You’re not Xuanzang. Xuanzang was meek and mild. A friend to all living things. You think that sounds like you?”

It did not. But then again I wasn’t the one trying to make a case here.

“Xuanzang was delicate like a chrysanthemum.” Quentin was getting a kick out of this. “You are so tough you snapped the battleaxe of the Mighty Miracle God like a twig. Xuanzang cried over squashing a mosquito. You, on the other hand, have killed more demons than the Catholic Church.”

I was starting to get annoyed. “Okay, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” If he thought I was the pig, then this whole deal was off.

“You’re my weapon,” he said. “You’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang.”

I punched Quentin as hard as I could in the face.”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“Spiritual power isn’t just or merciful. It’s fair. That’s what makes it so dangerous.”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“I was ready when Quentin approached me after school the following day.

“Genie,” he said. “Please. Let me expl—moomph!”

“Stay away,” I said, mashing the bulb of garlic into his face as hard as I could. I didn’t have any crosses or holy water at home. I had to work with what was available.

Quentin slowly picked the cloves out of my hand before popping them into his mouth.

“That’s white vampires,” he said, chewing and swallowing the raw garlic like a bite of fruit. “If I was a jiangshi you should have brought a mirror.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You’re going to stink now.”

“What, like a Chinese?” He pursed his lips and blew a kiss at me.

Instead of being pungent, his breath was sweet with plum blossoms and coconut. Like his body magically refused to be anything but intensely appealing to me, even on a molecular level.

I tried to swat away his scent before it made me drunk.”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

“I let the divine being leave first and gave him a few minutes to do whatever it was he needed to do to get back to Heaven. It seemed polite, though I’d only made that rule up in my head.

When I stepped out of the shack, Quentin was there by the roadside, waiting for me.

“Have a nice chat?”

I knew his peevish tone was his usual allergic reaction to Erlang Shen, but for some reason I didn’t field it well today.

“Yeah, we really connected on an emotional level,” I snapped. “I promised to turn into a stick for him.”

That was perhaps the weirdest, most hyper-targeted dig I’d ever leveled at someone, but boy did it work. Quentin looked like I’d broken him in half and left him on the curb for pickup. He was completely silent the entire trip back to civilization.

He didn’t call or text me that night either”
― F.C. Yee, The Epic Crush of Genie Lo