The Sunset Emperor Quotes

“The emperor was supposed to be the North Star, but if the sun never set, the North Star never got a chance to shine, and these grand councillors were all determined to make sure that Cixi's sun never set.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“She had a hole in her, a thirsty place that gladly drank attention, compliments and praise.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“This was how we fought war. We drowned the battle sounds in the din of festive music and spent our time on song, dance and ritual.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“The darkness here was different, much louder for one thing, layered with voices and calls, people coming and going.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“They called me Master of Ten Thousand Years, but I was not master of anything, and certainly not of so many inconceivable years. I didn't want ten thousand years. I wanted to eat.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“The night lost its solidity. Sleep tugged me from its grip and tears misted its outline.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“I listened with interest, but thought it too sad a thing that we and the foreigners knew each other only in this way: they came conquering, and we went with apologies forced from our lips.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“They wanted me to forget that there had been other songs, hands and hearts.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“Then they did as with the birds, covered me too and shut me away in dark places.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“My father lifted the cover from the songbirds' cage and released from within a stream of trills. I kept still in the bamboo. I loved the way the birds performed on call, lift the cover and they came alive, chattering to the gardens until the covers were replaced. Then they fell silent again in the darkness.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“I had never seen the sea and would never see Europe or any foreign land. The books were my ocean-tossed ship.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“The foreign books meant much to me. I didn't always understand them, but I valued them regardless, even the simple words in English primers or the technical works beyond my grasp. They were my journeys and my window. I had no other way of looking beyond my small world.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“My head hummed with words, very different, English words. I ran through them in silence, fixing them in place in my mind. It was a marvellous pastime to take the world and name it anew.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“It mattered nothing to me that someone was Christian or whatever else. It wasn't important what name a man gave Heaven, for the names were many, and many too the altars and shrines, rituals and prayers.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“..., but hearts did not always count years and degrees the same way and she still felt the sadness keenly.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“But if there was one thing I'd been learning these last years, it was that there were big gaps between what people taught and the desires they affirmed, and how they applied these things in reality.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“There was no need to fear new things. Shaking hands with a foreigner didn't make me foreign.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“I blinked my eyes hard and pushed the tears away. I would soon mourn my uncle's death, this I knew, but it was not time to mourn my country.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“The sun descended, sinking light, tinged with approaching end. I did not want to be the sunset emperor, the one to watch the day fade and falter, powerless to stop the night's advance.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“I thought I could hear the rain's sad voice but that was just my imagination. I liked the rain when it swallowed my world's usual outlines and clothed everything in delicate mist that let my fancy grow.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“A country that let its rituals fall apart would soon fall apart itself.
This I knew from the classroom years, of course. Confucius and his followers all said it. But they didn't say that we had to let rituals strangle us like vines could strangle trees, choking the lifeblood from them until only the husk remained.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“She said I would lose my throne, but if I didn't continue the reforms, I would lose my country too. It had never been properly mine anyway, this throne, and it meant less to me than these lands and peoples who'd been entrusted to my hands.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“Her storms were different to my mother's long-ago thunder bursts.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“It didn't ultimately matter if knowledge came from friend or foe, it was important only to gain it and use it well.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“I'd watch the birds as a boy and Tutor Weng would snatch me back to his side. He'd had a smile for me then, knowing a child's dream to follow the birds skyward, but said that if I wished to fly, the only wings I could wear were those he offered, those made of books and learning. Only learning lifted us free and let us soar and glide with broad view and swift movement, and, persuaded, I'd put my wandering eyes back in his hands.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“I used to write in my essays and poems for Tutor Weng of my love and concern for the people. But only now did I really see this people for the first time in my life. Peace and good crops, if we could give them this alone it would be a miracle.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor