The Wall of Storms Quotes

“We suffer because we are the grass upon which giants tread.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“History is the long shadow cast by the past upon the future. Shadows, by nature, lack details.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“The only duty any child owes to her parent is to live a life that is true to her nature.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Experience humbles.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“True courage is to insist on seeing when all around you is darkness.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“If the young do not have radical ideas, the world will never change,”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Sometimes you must do the right thing even if it hurts you. Actions reify ideals. We must never stop striving to do good, to protect the weak and the powerless. This is the charge to all men of learning.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“But in a time of war, knowledge made interesting friendships. Soon, the scholars and the thieves were . . . well, thick as thieves.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“You speak of destiny, yet what is destiny but accumulated chance made into a story in retrospect?”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“A poet marshals the words and phrases and stanzas for the purpose of moving the listener’s heart; an engineer marshals components and devices and effects for the purpose of changing the world.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Words and actions must be read under the guiding light of intent.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“True courage comes not from being certain and unafraid, but from doing what must be done even while being terrified and full of doubts.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“What courage it took for the starving and the poor to continue the mere act of existence, of survival, of endurance. Such quiet acts of heroism were not celebrated, and yet they made up the foundation of civilization, far more than all the honorable sentiments of the Ano sages and the pretty words of the nobles.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Your Highness, do not use the word 'envy' so casually when you do not know the paths others have trod on. Few women - no, few people - have the advantages you possess. If you lament that you cannot live as you like, perhaps it is because you have not tried to live as yourself at all.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Different times require different wisdom.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Like all true stories, it was a mix of legends and facts, of myths imagined and deeds done, of the heart of darkness and the crown of light, of experiences borne and gaps filled, of things seen and visions that could only be authenticated by the mind's eye.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“How can you say such things?!' demanded Kon Fiji. 'Our lives may have changed, but death has not. Respect for the elderly and honor given for a life well lived connect us to the accumulated wisdom of the past. When you die, do you wish to be buried as a common peasant instead of as a great scholar worthy of admiration?'

'In a hundred years, Master Kon Fiji, you and I will both be dust, and even the worms and birds who feast on our flesh will also have traveled through multiple revolutions of the wheel of life. Our lives are finite, but the universe is infinite. We are but flashes of lightning bugs on a summer night against the eternal stars. When I die, I wish to be laid out in the open so that the Big Island will act as my coffin, and the River of Heavenly Pearls my shroud; the cicadas will play my funeral possession, and the blooming flowers will be my incense burners; my flesh will feed ten thousand lives, and my bones will enrich the soil. I will return to the great Flow of the universe. Such honor can never be matched by mortal rites enacted by those obeying dead words copied out of a book.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“You have to both experience reality and construct it.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Sentiment makes us fools, and yet, without sentiment, we would be little better than dumb instruments wielded by the gods in their incomprehensible games.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Not every mind learns the same way. A knife needs to be sharpened against stone, but a pearl needs to be polished with soft cloth.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“There was little logic to the men’s reasoning, but sometimes logic was not as important as belief.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“A child who takes no risks is not going to lead an interesting life.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Never underestimate the power of the need to appear better than their peers to motivate people,”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“The world may not be fair, but we must strive to make it so.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“If our situation seems hopeless, we can either give in to it and lament our fortune, or revise the script and chart ourselves a new course. We’re always the heroes of our own stories.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“It’s sometimes hard for those at the center of a storm to see their own position clearly. The best creations of smokecrafters are drawn from the hearts of the deceived because we tell the most convincing lies to ourselves.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“A lotus is a bit like the dandelion. While dandelion seeds ride the wind, lotus seeds ride the water. Both have adventures.” Her eyes dimmed as she spoke. “Even flowers get to do more than some people.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“Our lives are but brief respites between stormy veils cast over the eternal unknown, and we must be guided in our deeds by the inner compass of our will, not what others may think of us. Yet”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“You betrayed reluctantly; you loved passionately; you sacrificed the affections of your children and wives; you were also a good father and husband; you defeated a tyrant; you brought peace to Dara; thousands died because of you; millions more were saved because of you; you tried to balance and accommodate competing interests; you strove to speak for those without a voice and wield power for those without influence,” said Fithowéo, the blind god of war as well as the club maiden for the All-Father. “You know the world isn’t perfect, but you’ve never ceased to believe that it could be perfected.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms

“After a pause, Tenryo laughed. “Prince Timu, you are very much mistaken if you think I’m afraid of ghosts. I care not for the petty musings of your philosophers, and I have slain more people than you can imagine. “I have been betrayed countless times in my life, and I, in turn, have betrayed those who thought me subjugated by a promise. Experience has taught me that even the bond between parent and child is no guarantee of faith. Obedience can be enforced only through terror and death, not grand gestures invoking the names of the gods or invisible spirits. A scene of carnage will pacify an unruly population more than all the pretty speeches in the world.” Timu stared at Tenryo, and for the first time, the reality of what he was facing seemed to be sinking in. “That . . . is a philosophy of evil.”
― Ken Liu, The Wall of Storms