Unsavory Elements Quotes & Sayings

Thinking Reports enable the prisoners to wash their brains, and become new!" he announced cheerfully. "Washing the brain is very important to your reform, and improving your real situation. — Dominic Stevenson

The only expenditure, and all its outworkings, for which God can be held to be responsible is that which He directs. — Amy Carmichael

Such a distant, forgotten thing, this Light. — Brian A. McBride

That's the thing about Chinese mothers: hidden behind their maternal expectations and critical diatribes are women who will fight to the death for you. As soon as I called her Mama, Li-Ming would be my strongest ally for the only months I knew her. — Kaitlin Solimine

This communal parenting brought me out of the privacy of our foreign enclave and into the public life of the community. Here, parenting was everyone's responsibility; all adults were "aunties" and "uncles". — Aminta Arrington

I remember looking around at the girls, the men, the drugs and the money, and wondering how long this utopia could last: the Chinese dream, in its second, prodigal generation. — Susie Gordon

I had to pace my consumption cannily, because each time I finished what was in my bowl, someone would immediately fill it up with something else. "Eat more," they would say. "Eat more pig's ear! — Dan Washburn

What still runs through your mind at moments like these, even all these years into your China time, is "how can I possibly explain this to the folks back home?" Here's the other thing that you have to explain to them: things like this keep happening. — Jonathan Campbell

I needed an adult female wearing a tight sleeveless cheongsam mini-dress to help me learn Chinese. All my senses would have to focus; otherwise I would end up knowing nothing. Tracing each Chinese character upon the small of her back with my index finger was only proper way to begin a lesson. — Matt Muller

I hate to disappoint, but I just lay there, curled in a ball, shaking in pure terror. — Mike Mullin

When he (Richard Nixon) took the oath of office, he pledged to be the president for 100% of the people, and I challenge the president to prove that he is being the president for 100% of the people. — Jackie Robinson

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer's you are an old fart. That's how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone. — Terry Pratchett

Bu keyi, Cannot. It was one of the first Mandarin phrases I learned, and it is the phrase of choice for all things forbidden, out of bounds, not possible, or otherwise not allowed. Its meaning seems to vacillate with circumstances: sometimes bu keyi means no, sometimes it suggests maybe, and sometimes it even hints at yes. — Deborah Fallows

Together we gazed out over corkscrew switchbacks cut through a barren, rocky landscape stretching to the horizon. It was simultaneously awesome and insane to be in this spot as a family, though, for a flicker of an instant, the lone explorer in me longed to be out there alone with just a 4x4. — Alan Paul

Then Elrond and Galadriel rode on; for the Third Age was over and the Days of the Rings were passed and an end was come of the story and song of those times. — J.R.R. Tolkien

To acknowledge the presence of fear is to give birth to failure. — Katherine Mansfield

With her parents modeling such brutal favoritism, Sallie joined right in. She constantly belittled Tina and joined in with the taunts of the bullies on the bus. When an outsider sees a family member participating in abuse of another family member, the outsider quickly realizes it is okay to do the same. No one cared about this girl, not even her sister or parents, and Diane and I would sometimes join in on the teasing and taunts. — Kat Spencer

Anyone can say the love someone ... It's loving someone enough to let them go that will prove that love. — Jessica Jung

If I know what to spec, and I can measure it, and there are no unpredictable interdependencies between what you do and what I must do in response, then an economist would say that is sufficient information for a market to emerge between you and me. — Clayton Christensen

After he told them we were dating, which came out more like a Cultural Revolution confession than a family heart-to-heart, his father said flatly, "You can be friends with a foreign woman, but not date her. — Jocelyn Eikenburg

The labour-time necessary for the production of labour-power is the same as that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of its owner. — David Harvey

No wonder prostitution is so rampant in China, I mused as I watched the four girls watch us: why stand on your feet all day for slave wages when you can get rich on your back? — Tom Carter

I've almost never seen in China what Westerners would consider a fair fight. Somebody always pulls out a meat cleaver or picks up a brick to smash your head in. Or they simply gang up on you, like the cops were presently doing. — Rudy Kong

It's the bonds forged over baijiu, more than anything else, that keep me coming back for another ganbei despite the hiccups, figurative and literal. You can learn more about someone after three shots of baijiu than in years of sober tea sipping. — Derek Sandhaus

That car, as with the rest of Mr. Mao's lifestyle, was brand new. He had gotten rich, and gotten rich quick. But like the rest of his generation of Chinese Jay Gatsbys, the source of his wealth was murky. — Michael Levy

Why was I still traveling? Was it purely because it was better than turning around and going home, where I would have to make grown-up choices about my future? Or was I waiting to happen across a place that would tell me to stay? — Pete Spurrier

The key to successful change is sensitivity towards that which is indigenous and, in the long run, diversity will always be more resilient than monoculture despite the current unsustainable trends in the opposite direction. — Jonathan Watts

The harder it was to get, the more you want to keep it. — Jay Mark Mateo Balmes

Not sure how much longer she can continue her fight for the children or how much more of her there is to give, she pledged to keep going until she no longer can. — Kay Bratt

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 rural Chinese in Henan Province mixed alcohol and business like you wouldn't believe. Perhaps as a result, they also had a charming nationalistic blind spot: they honestly believed they could out-drink everyone else on the planet. As an Irish-American who outweighed them by 50 pounds, I had come to find this both amusing and useful. — Matthew Polly

I've developed contours for his elbows and knees and bum, and nobody else quite fits into me in quite the same way — Nick Hornby