A Single Pebble Quotes

“I have very little,” he said, and he spoke as if having little were the greatest fortune, and the greatest buffer against the future, that a man could wish.”
― John Hersey, A Single Pebble

“And now that I think back, I realize the real gap between us lay in the fact that I, who was so proud of coming from the swift-winged world of science, was laughing at an old world where it was possible seriously to believe that men die young of the bad habit of failing to go out on a dangerous river to gaze at the earth when it turns overnight into silver.”
― John Hersey, A Single Pebble

“Thus a translation of a translation brought us together, but I can see now that we were still very far apart, farther apart indeed than languages, even though we had laughed together, for our laugher was cruel, as laughter often is. I was laughing at the awkwardness of a Chinese mind, the translator's; Su-ling at the awkwardness of a Western mind, mine.”
― John Hersey, A Single Pebble

“the trackers, an even more pathetic collection of tatterdemalions than our porters of the morning, began to attach themselves resignedly to the lines. They had such sad faces!”
― John Hersey, A Single Pebble