Chinese Writing Quotes & Sayings

warriors. In 2007 Cooper fought a Chinese long-sword instructor on a Hong Kong rooftop - he never thought the experience would help him write battle scenes. In addition to being a member of the Mongoliad writing team, Cooper has written articles for various magazines. His autobiographical piece "Growing Up Black and White," published in Seattle Weekly, was awarded Social Issues Reporting Article of the Year by the — Neal Stephenson

[D]espite her alternative leanings, it turned out Crystal was not particularly psyco-babbly or airy-fairy or tree-huggy, as one might have expected.
In fact, the first thing she did was write a list. She said writing lists helped calm her down when she was stressed about anything because it put problems in order. You can look at a list of things and see how you can tackle each one separately without feeling sick about it, she said. Whereas if they all just stayed jumbled in your mind in one great bit sticky ball you never got to consider them individually.
She actually spoke a lot of sense for someone with toe rings and a Chinese tattoo. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

You see, calling things by their proper names is the beginning of wisdom. That's a Chinese proverb and they invented writing. The wisdom, in case you're wondering, is that when you get names right, you narrow the gap between you and the thing. — Zia Haider Rahman

A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice. — Frances Mayes

There is a progression from pictographic, writing the picture; to ideographic, writing the idea; and then logographic, writing the word. Chinese script began this transition between 4,500 and 8,000 years ago: signs that began as pictures came to represent meaningful units of sound. Because the basic unit was the word, thousands of distinct symbols were required. This is efficient in one way, inefficient in another. Chinese unifies an array of distinct spoken languages: people who cannot speak to one another can write to one another. It employs at least fifty thousand symbols, about six thousand commonly used and known to most literate Chinese. In swift diagrammatic strokes they encode multidimensional semantic relationships. One device is simple repetition: tree + tree + tree = forest; more abstractly, sun + moon = brightness and east + east = everywhere. The process of compounding creates surprises: grain + knife = profit; hand + eye = look. — James Gleick

In my time since moving to the United States, I've found that there is a dearth of great writing for black people. There are stories that depict us in a way that isn't cliched or niche, and that a white person, a Chinese person, an Indian person can watch and relate to. Those are the stories I want to be a part of telling. — David Oyelowo

And so we went. And so it went. And, slowly, I began to learn: speaking in the same language does not equal communication, especially when there is a cultural divide. — Gerry Abbey

I had various jobs, I taught a SAT class, I was a bartender, I had a day job at an office and was making short films. I got grants from NYSCA and NEA for an idea, which later became 'Huckabees,' about a guy in a Chinese restaurant who had microphones on every table and heard every personal conversation and would write perversely personal fortunes. — David O. Russell

At the beginning of my career as a writer, I felt I knew nothing of Chinese culture. I was writing about emotional confusion with my mother related to our different beliefs. Hers was based in family history, which I didn't know anything about. I always felt hesitant in talking about Chinese culture and American culture. — Amy Tan

When my brother, ... , was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to grasp and memorize. Father a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: 'Just my luck!' he would say. 'What a pity she was not born a man!' But then I gradually realized that people were saying 'It's bad enough when a man flaunts his Chinese learning; she will come to no good,' and since I have avoided writing the simplest character. — Murasaki Shikibu

I grew up thinking the only scriptures on earth were those inspired by the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament, the words and letters of Jesus and his apostles, and the scriptures of the Restoration. But how could the God I believed was the loving God of all the earth not speak somehow to everyone else? For years I wrestled with this idea. Having now read the Chinese classics, certainly Confucius, but others as well, I believe I have found the scriptural infusion God gave the Chinese nation. Mencius is my favorite, I must admit, and I do not hesitate to call what he bestowed upon the world scripture--some of the most optimistic, holy writing the world has. — S. Michael Wilcox

The Chinese say that there is no scenery in your home town. They're right. Being in another place heightens the senses, allows you to see more, enjoy more, take delight in small things; it makes life richer. You feel more alive, less cocooned. — Jane Wilson-Howarth

Historians usually focus their attention on the past of countries that still exist, writing hundreds and thousands of books on British history, French history, German history, Russian history, American history, Chinese history, Indian history, Brazilian history or whatever. Whether consciously or not, they are seeking the roots of the present, thereby putting themselves in danger of reading history backwards. As soon as great powers arise, whether the United States in the twentieth century or China in the twenty-first, the call goes out for offerings on American History or Chinese History, and siren voices sing that today's important countries are also those whose past is most deserving of examination, that a more comprehensive spectrum of historical knowledge can be safely ignored. — Norman Davies

Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design. — Helen Keller

Better known as the Secret of the Golden Flower, this is a famous neidan text that the Western world came to know through Richard Wilhelm's 1929 translation. The Chinese text used by Wilhelm was edited by Zhanran Huizhen zi in 1921. Besides this, at least five more versions are available, all of which date to the late Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and are ascribed to Lu Dongbin, who revealed them through spirit writing. — Monica Esposito

What happens with your stream of experience if you realize that no one is in control of it? If you see that it is just going along of itself, unpushed and unpulled? (This is what the Chinese writing on this page means: The Tao, the course of nature, flows of itself.) You can get the feel of it by breathing without doing anything to help your breath along. Let the breath out, and then let it come back by itself, when it feels like it. And then out again when it wants to go out. — Alan W. Watts

fought a Chinese long-sword instructor on a Hong Kong rooftop - he never thought the experience would help him write battle scenes. In addition to being a member of the Mongoliad writing team, Cooper has written articles for various magazines. His autobiographical piece "Growing Up Black and White," published in the Seattle Weekly, was awarded Social Issues Reporting Article of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists. He lives in Issaquah, Washington, with his wife, three children, and numerous bladed weapons. — Neal Stephenson

My dad was Chinese-American and very conservative when it came to his family's futures. He said if I wanted to have a secure job, I should go into science. So I did what Dad said and went to medical school, but the writing bug never left me. — Tess Gerritsen

Because at this time, in this place, Chinese writing exhibits symptoms of a mental disorder. — Murong Xuecun

I write my books to challenge my own feelings and theories. Perhaps most surprising was what I learned about rice farming. It was really interesting to think of how different Asian and Western cultures are as a result of the kinds of agricultural practices that our ancestors used for thousands of years. The life of a Chinese peasant in the Middle Ages was so dramatically different from the life of a European peasant - night and day different. — Malcolm Gladwell

Just at the moment he's writing a book on famine - goodness! it's sad - and there's a dear little Chinese comrade who comes and tells him what famine is like, you never saw such a fat man in your life. — Nancy Mitford

Unfortunately, I have dedicated great effort to the task of compiling this 'sensitive words glossary,' and I have mastered my filtering skills. I knew which words and sentences had to be cut, and I accepted the cutting as if that was the way it should be. In fact, I will often take it on myself to save time and cut a few words. I call this 'castrated writing' - - I am a proactive eunuch, I have already castrated myself before the surgeon raises his scalpel. — Murong Xuecun

Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world. — Alan Watts

Yesterday was Chinese New Year. It's the Year of the Rabbit. And here's how dumb I am. I'm still writing the Year of the Pig on my checks. — David Letterman

All kinds of mysterious phenomena exist in this world, but answers to most of them have come with advances in scientific knowledge. Love is the sole holdout-nothing can explain it. A Chinese writer by the name of Ah Cheng wrote that love is just a chemical reaction, an unconventional point of view that seemed quite fresh at the time. But if love can be controlled and initiated by means of chemistry, then novelists would be out of a job. So while he may have had his finger on the truth, I'll remain a member of the loyal opposition. — Mo Yan

What is the elephant in all our rooms? It is the global triumph of capitalism. Democracy is fiercely disputed. Freedom is under threat even in old-established democracies such as Britain. Western supremacy is on the skids. But everyone does capitalism. Americans and Europeans do it. Indians do it. Russian oligarchs and Saudi princes do it. Even Chinese communists do it ... Karl Marx would be turning in his grave. Or perhaps not, since some of his writings eerily foreshadowed our era of globalized capitalism. His prescription failed but his description was prescient. — Timothy Garton Ash

It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture of mankind. The New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips and in the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such a juxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men ... This would be the Bible, or Book of Books, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost parts of the earth. — Henry David Thoreau

The biggest problem in Chinese society is not money, but rather the lack of a developed civil society. Civil society has received a lot of attention in recent years. But in truth, squared off against the overwhelming presence of the state, the positive elements of civil society are completely powerless."

[In interview. Pathlight: New Chinese Writing (Summer 2013)] — Bi Feiyu

Be wary of feeling as through there is not enough room at the table. Oftentimes a female Chinese-American might feel as through she is in competition with another Chinese-American woman writer of the same generation. A writer friend of mine calls it the "There Can Only Be One ... " syndrome. This isn't "Survivor." The more good writers, of all walks of life and all ethnicities and persuasions, the better. — ZZ Packer

I am writing a sequel to The Touch because I want to further explore the Chinese question that I have raised. There will be more about that in a sequel. — Colleen McCullough

I intend to see that justice is done by presiding, in the manner of the omnipotent Walter Mitty, as chief justice of a tribunal trying the case of those plotting further advances for the Chinese characters on an international scale. Emulating the operatic Mikado's "object all sublime... to let the punishment fit the crime," I hand down the following dread decree:

Anyone who believes Chinese characters to be a superior system of writing that can function as a universal script is condemned to complete the task of rendering the whole of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address into Singlish.
— John DeFrancis

Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister ... She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul de sac ... Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no other way you can govern a Chinese society. — Lee Kuan Yew

let us start by picturing the Japan archipelago lying in the sea by the Chinese mainland. If its proximity allowed it to become part of the Sinosphere and acquire a written culture, its distance benefited the development of indigenous writing. The Dover Strait, separating England and France, is only 34 kilometers (21 miles) wide. A fine swimmer can swim across it. In contrast, the shortest distance between Japan and the Korean Peninsula is five or six times greater, and between Japan and the Chinese mainland, twenty-five times greater. The current, moreover, is deadly. . . . Japan's distance from China gave it political and cultural freedom and made possible the flowering of its own writing. — Minae Mizumura