Ryuu Kyojin

“And this, among other reasons, is why I am against the word “grief,” which in contemporary culture seems to indicate a process that has an end point: the sooner you get there, the sooner you prove yourself to be a good sport at living, and the less awkward people around you will feel. Sometimes people ask me where I am in the grieving process, and I wonder whether they understand anything at all about losing someone. How lonely the dead would feel, if the living were to stand up from death’s shadow, clap their hands, dust their pants, and say to themselves and to the world, I am done with my grieving; from this point on it’s life as usual, business as usual.”
― Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow

“Fiction, one suspects, is tamer than life.”
― Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow

“A pebble is a pebble, which will not get more due than it deserves.”
― Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow

“My garden is not a metaphor for hope or regeneration, the flowers are never tasked to be the heralds for brightness and optimism. Things in nature merely grow. There is no suicidal or angry rose, there is no depressed or rebellious lily. Plants have but one goal: to live. In order to live they grow when they can, and go into dormancy if needed. They live until they die—and either they die as destined by nature or are cut down by other elements in nature. A garden is a placeholder. Flowers are placeholders.”
― Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow