Strange Stones Quotes

“The joy of nonfiction is searching for balance between storytelling and reporting, finding a way to be both loquacious and observant.”
― Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

“appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation.”
― Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

“One challenge for a foreign correspondent is to figure out how much of yourself to include: If a story is too self-centered, it becomes a tourist’s diary. These days, the general trend is to reduce the writer’s presence, often to the point of invisibility. This is the standard approach of newspapers, and it’s described as a way of maintaining focus and impartiality. But it can make the subject feel even more distant and foreign. When I wrote about people, I wanted to describe the ways we interacted, the things we shared and the things that separated us.”
― Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

“But there were reports that Jiang and other members of the Old Guard were resisting retirement, and experts said that the Beidaihe meetings would be the first battleground of the political transition. Communist China had never had an orderly succession—for half a century, every transfer of power had involved coups or power struggles.”
― Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

“mental institutions, rural health clinics. Once, he met”
― Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

“When Chen Meizi had chosen her specialty, she didn't expect to find a job that matched her abilities; she expected to find new abilities that matched the available jobs.”
― Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

“When you live in China as a foreigner, there are two critical moments of recognition. The first comes immediately upon arrival, when you are confronted with your own ignorance. Language, customs, history- all of it has to be learned, and the task seems impossible. Then, just as you begin to catch on, you realize that everybody else feels pretty much the same way. The place changes too fast; nobody in China has the luxury of being confident in his knowledge. Who shows a peasant how to find a factory job? How does a former Maoist learn to start a business? Who has the slightest clue how to run a car rental agency? Everything is figured out on the fly; the people are masters at improvisation. This is the second moment of recognition, and it's even more frightening than the first. Awareness of your own ignorance is a lonely feeling, but there's little consolation in sharing it with 1.3 billion neighbors”
― Peter Hessler, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West