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I once believed that heroes existed only in old men’s fables, that evil in the world had triumphed over good, and that love—a true, unselfish, and abiding love—could only be found in a little girl’s imagination.
The most difficult battles in life are those we fight within.
“Life will not always be so hard or cruel. Our difficulties are but a moment.”
“Remember, Sang Ly. When you find your purpose—and you will find your purpose—never let go. Peace is a product of both patience and persistence.”
Many say that Lucky looks just like a grinning Chinese Buddha (not the Cambodian Buddha, who is quite skinny).
Crafting a plan is easy. Taking action will always prove to be the more difficult path.
In Cambodia, when parents get old, they move in with their children, who offer shelter, food, and happy grandchildren. It’s the perfect retirement plan—as
“But literature is unique. To understand literature, you read it with your head, but you interpret it with your heart. The two are forced to work together—and, quite frankly, they often don’t get along.”
Laugh with me, monkey. Bring impish tricks and mischievous heart. Help sorrow waft and cheer restore before the sun sets red. Run with me, tiger, with imposing stripes of orange and deafening growl. Cause enemies to cower and bring my spirit courage. Pull with me, water buffalo. Turn furrowed fields to golden rice that’s sweet. Show true resolve and the strength of a determined mind. Rest with me, turtle, with emerald shield and wisdom old as time. Teach me to value a strong home that will protect against the rain. Swim with me, fish, through renewing waters that are broad and deep and blue.
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“Two things happen when you get to be old. One, you gather experience and knowledge. You learn from your mistakes and thereby offer wisdom to others. The second thing that happens is that you grow forgetful, ornery, and senile, and when you offer advice, well, you sometimes just don’t know what you’re talking about. Often it’s hard for everyone—including me—to know the difference.
“Literature is a cake with many toys baked inside—and even if you find them all, if you don’t enjoy the path that leads you to them, it will be a hollow accomplishment. There was a playwright named Heller, American, I believe, who summed it up this way. He said, ‘They knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.’ ”
“Learning is an affair that takes a lifetime.
‘Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.’
“Will my learning help him?” I ask, needing to confirm that I’m making the right choice. “Education is almost always good, especially when it brings us to an understanding of our place in the world.” “And literature will do that?” “Sang Ly, we are literature—our lives, our hopes, our desires, our despairs, our passions, our strengths, our weaknesses. Stories express our longing not only to make a difference today but to see what is possible for tomorrow. Literature has been called a handbook for the art of being human. So, yes. It will do that.”
“In literature, everything means something.”
“Fight ignorance with words. Fight evil with your knife.
Words, Sang Ly, are not only powerful, they are more valuable than gold.”
“gold pays for food, clothing, rent—everything. What do words buy?” “When you take your child to the doctor, how do you explain your son’s illness so the doctor can offer help? Will all the gold in the world communicate what is wrong?” “I guess not,” I answer. “How then does he know?” “I tell him—” “Precisely . . . with words. You use words. While gold may pay the doctor’s bill, words have already helped save the child.” She doesn’t quit there. “If you want to tell your husband how much he means to you, what do you do? Do you give him gold?” “He would no doubt prefer that.” “If you gave him
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Words provide a voice to our deepest feelings. I tell you, words have started and stopped wars. Words have built and lost fortunes. Words have saved and taken lives. Words have won and lost great kingdoms. Even Buddha said, ‘Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care, for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.’
“Just when we think we have our own stories figured out,” she says, “heroes arise in the most unexpected places.”
Dreams are curious. Most dreams are nonsensical scenes that cause us to giggle when we recall them in the morning. Others are frightening nightmares during which we are attacked by gangs, chased by garbage trucks, or endlessly falling in menacing darkness. A few rare dreams are so real, so detailed and profound, that they alter the course of our lives. Last night I had such a dream.
“William Shakespeare called dreams the ‘children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy.’ ”
‘Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.’ ” “And who said that?” “That was also William Shakespeare.”
“If you listen to Jung, he said that to learn from our dreams we should ponder them. I believe he said, ‘Consciousness succumbs too easily to unconscious influences, as these are often truer and wiser than our conscious thinking.’ ” “I don’t understand what he means.” “It’s his way of saying that dreams are more important than we can ever imagine—we just need to listen.”
If you know a lot, know enough to make people respect you. If you are stupid, be stupid enough so they can pity you.
“Because I distance myself from heaven and then complain that heaven is distant.
“The poet Hunt said, ‘There are two worlds: the world that we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imagination.’
While almost everything that surrounds us in life gets old and wears out, stories, like our very souls, don’t age.
an old, pearl-haired woman
I will read her literature, she will understand that we mean her no harm, and all can be right with the world once again.
‘We can’t claim heaven as our own if we are just going to sit under it.’”
Then I remind myself, he’s also the grandfather who said, “If you are going to do wrong, at least make sure you don’t get fat from it.”
There is a Cambodian proverb Grandfather loved that says, For news of the heart, watch the face. At this moment, I think it would be more apt to say, For news of a mother’s heart, watch her child’s face.
“It doesn’t matter where you live, Sang Ly, it is how you live.”
Never read the ending first.
Child, unless you are opening a dictionary, you start at the book’s opening page and you read the story through. If it’s terribly dreadful, then just put it down and move on. What I will not tolerate is reading ahead. It’s not fair to the reader or to the author. If they meant to have their books read backwards, they would surely have written them that way!
“Words demand justice, encourage freedom, change minds, and soften hearts—and words save.”
And that’s when the old women remembered learning that elephants mirror humans in numerous ways—life span, development, family ties, and feelings. Similar to people, they display a range of emotion. They will help one another in adversity, miss an absent loved one when separated, smile when they feel happy, and shed tears when they are sad. And when they are too weak to get up, they die surrounded by their grieving loved ones, just as humans would choose to die.
