Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven Quotes

“I’m aware that there is a bigger, far more complicated world out there than I’d ever realized, and just like the students at Beijing University, I’ve glimpsed it only fleetingly, peripherally. I’ve sensed the vast expanse of my own ignorance now. I feel antsy and constricted and a deep, almost sexual yearning for velocity, for some sort of raw, transcendent experience that I cannot even begin to articulate.”
― Susan Jane Gilman, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

“Everything became a metaphor, a talisman, a sign that I was still actually connected to people—that I wasn’t so completely on my own.”
― Susan Jane Gilman, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

“Being a tourist, I was beginning to see, meant being infantilized much of the time. All power is contextual.

There's nothing quite like feeling helpless to turn you into a world-class control freak, to make you forget your manners and throw a tantrum.

The true condition of anyone once you stripped them of their loved ones, their culture and their passions was just this: Loneliness. An incurable longing, insecurity and grief.”
― Susan Jane Gilman, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

“You're not a Communist, Ma," my father would say with irritation.
"You're an alcoholic. There's a difference.”
― Susan Jane Gilman, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

“Whenever I think of these things, I feel an exquisite pang of longing. I feel oddly depressed; it's almost like I know too much simply to be in the moment anymore, to enjoy what I used to relish so uncritically. I'm aware that there is a bigger, far more complicated world out there than I'd ever realized, and just like the students at Beijing University, I've glimpsed it only fleetingly, peripherally. I've sensed the vast expanse of my own ignorance now. I feel antsy and constricted and a deep, almost sexual yearning for velocity, for some sort of raw, transcendent experience that I cannot even begin to articulate.”
― Susan Jane Gilman, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

“eerily”
― Susan Jane Gilman, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven