Joyce Chua > Quotes

“You can't leave someone without taking a piece of them with you.”
― Joyce Chua, Lambs for Dinner

“Maybe the past could never be past. Maybe it's burned into us like the stars are burned into the backdrop of the sky, irrevocable and ageless.”
― Joyce Chua, Lambs for Dinner

“Conformity was safe. It could tame the wildest beast and temper the hardest savage. If I couldn't run from my past, then maybe I could bleach it out of sight, if not wipe it clean.”
― Joyce Chua, Lambs for Dinner

“I used to believe everyone was a little crazy in his or her own way, that we were all allowed a moment of insanity, of letting go and giving in, from time to time.

I used to think everyone would understand if somebody slipped because everyone went through such inexplicable bouts of madness too.”
― Joyce Chua, Lambs for Dinner

“Everyone around me was a liability. This was the life I had chosen and it always managed to catch up with me.”
― Joyce Chua, Lambs for Dinner

“In between darkness and light was the place that madmen ran to. It was the shadowed corner in fever dreams that woke us up, cloying, alone, and tangled with fear.”
― Joyce Chua, Lambs for Dinner

“If fear and hatred made beasts of us, then it was our stories that made us human.”
― Joyce Chua, Lambs for Dinner

“The desert was a living beast, merciless and wild. Its magic ran rampant, led by a mind of its own. Wanderers spoke of winds that whispered to them in the quiet hours before dawn and local tribes passed down tales of unspeakable creatures concealed by night.
And there in the heart of it lay a spring.”
― Joyce Chua, Land of Sand and Song

“To hell with destiny. It will not make a plaything of me.”
― Joyce Chua, Kingdom of Blood and Gold

“For some reason, he smelled of the desert, as though he hadn’t quite left it behind. It was sharp and rough, like the hide of a wolf, but mixed with the musky scent of campfires and sweet mulled wine. In him, she caught a whiff of home again, and the ache in her chest grew so large it could have cracked her open then.”
― Joyce Chua, Land of Sand and Song

“For the first time in his entire life, he had allowed himself to entertain the thought of a life without the weight of his destiny on his shoulders, where he could live and love as freely as he wished. And it took a girl from the desert to make him dream of a life as someone else.
But that was not a dream he could afford. His fate was written in the stars. He was an arrow launched at birth, and he could not miss his mark.”
― Joyce Chua, Land of Sand and Song

“There are those who seek glory over peace. Never leave your back facing them.”
― Joyce Chua, Land of Sand and Song

“I don't believe in destiny. I believe we are the makers of our own lives and are only as free as we allow ourselves to be”
― Joyce Chua, Land of Sand and Song

“Blame the ones who deceive, not those who trust.”
― Joyce Chua, Kingdom of Blood and Gold

“Even in the deepest winter and the driest desert, hope springs eternal.”
― Joyce Chua, Land of Sand and Song