Ryuu Kyojin

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

“What is grief but a word, a shortcut, a simplification of something much larger than that word?
Thinking about my children is like air, like time. Thinking about them will only end when I reach the end of my life.”
― Yiyun Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow

“I do believe that we learn to suffer better. We become more discerning in our suffering: there are things that are worth suffering for, and then there is the rest—minor suffering and inessential pain—that is but pebbles, which can be ignored or kicked aside. We also become less rigid: suffering suffuses one’s being; one no longer resists.”
― 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