Spirits Abroad Quotes

“But a woman should not marry where there is no respect. Respect is the most important thing.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“I brought seaweed snacks from home,' chimed in another kid. "Seaweed got iron, right?"
'I don't think the teachers meant that kind of iron,' said Hui Ann.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“The first time she saw the boy across the classroom, Ah Lee knew she was in love because she tasted durian on her tongue.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“she was attempting to deploy enchantments of her own — the fiancé, the ordinary hobbies and the sensible office job were so many sigils to ward off chaos. It was not an ineffective magic. It worked”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“My mother always told me, don't trust men who don't respect boundaries,' said Fairuz. 'Bullet tu, either he doesn't know or he doesn't care what is boundaries. Men like that is dangerous.'

Fairuz was only half right, though Sham. It wasn't just men who didn't understand boundaries that were the problem. What made them dangerous was the people who found their lack of understanding funny, endearing, normal. The danger lay in everyone else.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“Other dragons are bastards. I moved out of my mother's cave after my mother tried to rip my guts out.
Granted, I had tried to steal her Tiara of Clairvoyance.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“I can speak four dialects, but none of them is fairy language.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“Love was like swallowing a cili padi whole.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“Whether I'm a good wife doesn't have anything to do with what he was like.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“Magic ran in the family. Even her mother's second cousin, who was adopted, did small spells on the side. She sold these from a stall in Kota Bharu. Her main wares were various types of fruit fried in batter, but if you bought five pisang or cempedak goreng, she threw in a jampi for free.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“How could you die and not be old enough to hear about premarital sex? How could you die and still not be allowed to fall in love or be honest? Surely not everything had to wait for university and a good job. Passion and truth had to trump even those things.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“It looked like all forest spirits—tall, pointy ears, big smile. It didn't look male or female. Forest spirits don't have this concept. They say male or female has no meaning. They don't like to follow rules. Like I said, they are very lazy.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“I thought: if I die, I hope I get reincarnated into a mosquito so I can bite that fucker kau-kau.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“The tabloids wanted to know whether the dragon was receiving benefits. The gossip magazines claimed to have found a woman who was bearing the dragon's baby. The fashion magazines did spreads on draconian style. This apparently consisted of gaunt models with sunken eyes, swathed in clouds of chiffon and arranged in awkwardly erotic positions on piles of gold coins.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad

“He would gaze at her with intrigued longan seed eyes.”
― Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad