The Living Reed Quotes

“In silence they lay close, without passion, but closer than passion could bring them they lay close.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“The gift he had been given was sometimes heavy to bear, the ability always to understand why the other person was as he was. Wounded, yes, but never angry, and there were times when he longed to feel fierce personal anger.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“We must save ourselves by doing what is godlike and we will become godlike.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“he believed that to answer a child’s question before it is asked is to destroy natural curiosity.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“To belong to one was to deny himself the privilege of belonging to all.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“Can one spit on a smiling face?” he inquired; or he said, “Vengeance cannot last a night’s sleep.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“The tears of the old come as easily as the tears of children,”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“It is easy to destroy but hard to create. Remember that, when you want to destroy something.” The”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“Attachment,” Buddha had said, “is the cause of grief.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“the superior man leads not by violence or by coarse physical acts but by the pure intelligence of a wise mind.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“The mistakes of history bring relentless reprisals.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“Nations, like individuals, can only learn by their own individual experience.” Yul-chun”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“It was strange how these poems came to him nowadays, the distillation of his private emotions, of his disillusionment, of his solitude, of his yearning for a future in which, nevertheless, he could not believe.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“Pakdusan, Mount of Eternal Snow,”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“if China is not our suzerain!”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“island of Komudo,”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“the doctrine of isolationism and”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“after the ancient ondul fashion.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“The Koreans have always been and still are a people of superb creative talents, but King Sejong, in the thirty years of his rule, became a deathless legend.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“They were called turtle-boats and they were the first iron warships in history.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“under the decree and guidance of the great King Sejong.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“truebone” family,”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“This monumental work, Taijang-Kyung, is now preserved in eternity in the Hal-in-sa Temple, Mount Kaya, in the province”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“Buddhist sutra, the Tripitaka.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“by some 220 years Gutenberg’s lead-cast printing type in Germany in 1450.”
― Pearl S. Buck, The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“Brave young American men climbed the rugged slopes of Korean mountains and fought in homesickness and desperate weariness for the sake of a people strange to them and for reasons they scarcely understood, even when they yielded up their lives. With such noble impulse and final sacrifice, let the past be forgot, except for what it teaches for the future.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“Somewhere in the periphery of his mind and consciousness was the warning that Russia must be watched. For hundreds of years Russia had wanted Korea for its seacoast, its treasures of metals and minerals hidden in the mountains, its fisheries, the power of its rushing rivers and high tides. He did not believe that the heart of Russia was changed. Her ambitions might even be sharpened and intensified by a new government of hungry men, whose ancestors had been half-starved peasants. It was now their turn to grow fat and grow rich.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“It is easy to destroy, but it is hard to create. Do not destroy what your brother creates.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

“How can school help you with the land?" he asked.
An old grandfather leaned out of the shadows to make answer. "Learning clears the mind," he said, "and books open the spirit of man to heaven and to the earth."
"Do you know how to read?" Il-han asked.
The old man touched his wrinkled eyelids. "These two eyes can see only the surface of what life is.”
― Pearl S. Buck, Living Reed: A Novel of Korea