A Single Swallow Quotes

“In God’s eyes, a thousand years was like a day, and a day was like a thousand years. In the same way, one person was a universe, and perhaps the universe was a single person”
― Ling Zhang, A Single Swallow

“You were smart, but there were plenty of people in the world who were smarter than you, and cleverness is sometimes the biggest obstacle. Fortunately, you were also diligent and persistent. Diligence clips the wings of cleverness, allowing it to stay firmly on the ground. Persistence grinds away the sharp edges of cleverness, not allowing it to take shortcuts through things. Cleverness thus clipped can more fully penetrate the nature of things.”
― Ling Zhang, A Single Swallow

“God and the bodhisattvas are useless,” she said. “They only control good people, not bad people.”
― Ling Zhang, A Single Swallow

“Time is a miraculous thing. It can wear down the thorns of emotion, gradually eroding them to dust, and from this dust, a new sprout grows.”
― 张翎, A Single Swallow

“Diligence clips the wings of cleverness, allowing it to stay firmly on the ground. Persistence grinds away the sharp edges of cleverness, not allowing it to take shortcuts through things. Cleverness thus clipped can more fully penetrate the nature of things.”
― Ling Zhang, A Single Swallow

“Everything that happens in this world happens for reasons suited to its particular time,” she said at last.”
― Ling Zhang, A Single Swallow

“War is one world, and peace another. Each world has its own door, and they are not connected in any way.”
― Ling Zhang, A Single Swallow

“Facing death is a form of bravery, but so is facing life.”
― Ling Zhang, A Single Swallow

“Ferguson watched her walk out of the courtyard calmly, dust rising from the road with each firm step, her loosened hair shaking softly. This girl made all the women he’d ever known—even his mother, his sister, and his former girlfriend—seem pale and weak.”
― Ling Zhang, A Single Swallow

“The war had snapped a section of his youth off, and what he needed to do now was find the broken part and reattach it, like a good mechanic would do.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“But soreness has a long memory, so when his left shoulder began to feel sore, the right still hurt, and that pain was now doubled. Eventually, the weight seemed to spread from his shoulders to his legs.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“Under the double protection of silence and darkness, he could quietly digest his shame on his own.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“They never used their energy on emotions like anxiety, excitement, depression, or despair. They didn’t think about how far they had traveled from their starting point, nor did they consider how far they were from their destination. They just focused on the next step. They calculated precisely how much strength was required for each step, using neither more nor less than required.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“On the way there, she’d planned everything she would say at this moment, but with everything that had happened since, it had disappeared. She clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms, and the sharp pain gradually roused her, bringing the words back to her mind.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“They were sizing her up, betting she wouldn’t dare speak, since she risked losing face if she did. But they had made a mistake. They had pushed her too far.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“God only knew how many more such occasions there would be. The only person you could rely on was yourself. You had to exert your own strength to save yourself.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“In troubled times, death was a sort of mercy. But not everyone who asks for death can die. Heaven treats death as a gift, and God gave me no such gift, nor Ah Yan either, so we had to bear the cruelty of living.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“When you can’t sleep, your mind flies through countless things you thought you’d forgotten, things that have nothing to do with the present. For”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“All at once, I saw both her fragility and her bravery. She’d been wounded so severely that she couldn’t even face the name in a book, but she was braver than any man, even at the sight of blood and blade. I finally found the way to heal Stella. She didn’t need comfort, and she didn’t need to forget. She needed to save herself by saving others.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“had spent every day worrying about how to mend Stella’s roots, but she was much stronger than I was. Her roots could find their way alone in strange soil, but I always needed to lean on another, to have someone to keep me company.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“Time is a miraculous thing. It can wear down the thorns of emotion, gradually eroding them to dust, and from this dust, a new sprout grows. That sprout is the power of life.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“The worst disaster has already happened. What’s there to fear now?” She didn’t realize that her own destruction had just begun. There were still many disasters lined up along the road ahead, all waiting for her.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“Facing death is a form of bravery, but so is facing”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“the living half was unaware of the dead half—it was thriving, a luscious green, without remorse. It didn’t know the chaotic world we lived in. The days were like water, always flowing forward, not looking back, and waiting for no one. Not even these troubled days could stop it.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“I didn’t know a disastrous time in my life was about to begin. It would destroy not only my feet but also my path.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“people eat dogs, dogs eat shit, and tea leaves eat fog.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“He knew that human nature was riddled with a thousand gaping wounds.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“Time is a strange thing. It washes away the outer skin of solemnity and reveals the absurd nature of things.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“it was to gather information and harass the army, putting the Japanese in a state of fear at all times.”
― Zhang Ling, A Single Swallow

“1. In the future, when training soldiers for the battlefield in the Far East, it is necessary to strengthen the training in long-distance marches. It is not as simple as physical endurance but also involves complex variables such as lifestyle and mental habits, the distribution of energy, and so forth. Otherwise, it’s impossible to explain why Chinese soldiers who are far weaker than American soldiers have such a great advantage over their American counterparts in long-distance marching.”
― 张翎, A Single Swallow