Christopher Waller

“The theater was pitch black, save for the column of rotating light emanating from the hole in the projection room to create an illusory world”
― Wang Anyi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai

“Each of our friends has his defects so markedly that to continue to love him we are obliged to seek consolation for those defects -- in the thought of his talent, his goodness, his affection for ourself -- or rather to leave them out of account, and for that we need to display all our good will. Unfortunately our obliging obstinacy in refusing to see the defect in our friend is surpassed by the obstinacy with which he persists in that defect, from his own blindness to it or the blindness that he attributes to other people. For he does not notice it himself, or imagines that it is not noticed.”
― Marcel Proust (Translator: C K Scott Moncrieff)

“It was intensely cold, with sand swirling in the air. The wind seemed to be racing past overhead, blurring the outlines of stars in the sky, except for a few of the largest ones, which shimmered slightly. There was no wind near the ground, but the freezing cold air was everywhere, opening long cracks in the wheel ruts…”
― Lao She, Rickshaw Boy

“The tramcar would have gone on forever, if the city hadn't been shut down. It was. The streets were sealed off. "Ding-dingding-ding" rang the bell. Each "ding" was a small, cold dot: dot after dot, they formed a line that cut through space and time.”
― Zhang Ailing