55 Quotes by Tan Twan Eng

Before me lies a voyage of a million miles, and my memory is the moonlight I will borrow to illuminate my way.

When the First Man and First Woman were banished from their home, Time was also set loose upon the world.

I am certain it has never been easy, growing up as a child of mixed parentage in this place. But that is your strength. Accept the fact that you are different, that you are of two worlds. And I wish you to remember this when you feel you cannot go on: you are used to the duality of life. You have the ability to bring all of life’s disparate elements into a cohesive whole. So use it.

The world goes by, the young and the hopeful, all head for their future. Where does that leave us? There is a misconception that we have reached our destinations the moment we grow old, but it is not a well-accepted fact that we are still travelling towards those destinations, still beyond our reach even on the day we close our eyes for the final time.

Complete surrender, but not total abandonment of awareness.

One question remained to me. “If a higher level of bujutsu involves fighting with the mind, what then is the very highest level?” He closed his eyes for a while, seeing things he would never show me. “That,” he said, “would be never to fight at all.

I can only teach you the way, that is all. What you do with it and what it does to you, those are beyond my influence.

I will dance to the music of words, for one more time.

The young have hopes and dreams, while the old hold the remains of them in their hands and wonder what has happened to their lives.