Peter Hessler Quotes & Sayings

People with good memories are liable to be crushed by the weight of their suffering. Only those with bad memories, the fittest to survive, can live on. - Lu Xun — Peter Hessler

In China, much of life involves skirting regulations, and one of the basic truths is that forgiveness comes easier than permission. — Peter Hessler

Sometimes I thought of the Peace Corps as a reverse refugee organization, displacing all of us lost Midwesterners, and it was probably the only government entity that taught Americans to abandon key national characteristics. Pride, ambition, impatience, the instinct to control, the desire to accumulate, the missionary impulse - all of it slipped away. — Peter Hessler

I hit him as hard as I could. His hands were full of my belongings, and every time I punched him he dropped something. I slugged him and my camera popped out; I hit him again and there was my money belt; another punch and my shorts flew up in the air. — Peter Hessler

The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal. — Peter Hessler

Nevertheless, Chinese drivers haven't grasped the subtleties of headlight use. Most people keep their lights off until it's pitch-dark, and then they flip on the brights. Almost nobody uses headlights in rain, fog, snow, or twilight conditions - in fact, this is one of the few acts guaranteed to annoy a Chinese driver. They don't mind if you tailgate, or pass on the right, or drive on the the sidewalk. You can back down a highway entrance ramp without anybody batting an eyelash. But if you switch on your lights during a rainstorm, approaching drivers will invariably flash their brights in annoyance. — Peter Hessler

I realized that as a thinking person his advantage lay precisely in his lack of formal education. Nobody told him what to think, and thus he was free to think clearly. — Peter Hessler

I like to play chess. I moved to a small town, and nobody played chess there, but one guy challenged me to checkers. I always thought it was kind of a simple game, but I accepted. And he beat me nine or ten games in a row. That's sort of like living in a small town. It's a simpler game, but it's played to a higher level. — Peter Hessler

Alan Paul plunges into Chinese life and takes us along for the ride, through vegetable markets, used-car lots, Taoist temples, divey bars, and a beachside music festival before thousands of cheering fans. He conveys the thrills and challenges of living abroad, the confusions and regrets, and most of all the opportunity to become the person we always hoped to be. — Peter Hessler

Virtually every Chinese citizen whom I came to know well was doing something technically illegal, although usually the infraction was so minor that they didn't have to worry. It might be a sketchy apartment registration or a small business that bought its products from unlicensed wholesalers. Sometimes, it was comic: late at night, there were always people out walking their dogs in Beijing, because the official dog registration was ridiculously expensive. The dogs were usually ratlike Pekingese, led by sleepy owners who snapped to alertness if they saw a cop. They were guerillas walking toy dogs. — Peter Hessler

I began to see motorcyclists who had attached computer discs to their back mudflaps, because they made good reflectors. In a place called Xingwuying, locals climbed the Great Wall whenever they wanted to receive a cell phone signal. — Peter Hessler

Whenever somebody turned his head, he shouted, Stop looking behind you!: There was a strict rule against head turns. When reversing, you were supposed to rely on mirrors only; the blind spot didn't exist, at least not in Coach Tang's eyes. Nobody ever wore a seat belt. I never saw a turn signal flash on the parking range at the Public Safety Driving School. — Peter Hessler

Sometimes they seemed to grasp instinctively at the worst of both worlds: the worst modern habits, the worst traditional beliefs. — Peter Hessler