The Story of the Stone Quotes

“Occasionally a moderately intelligent thought misses a turn and accidentally enters my mind”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“I have never been able to understand why perfectly sensible people waste time being wittily obscure instead of just saying what they want and going on about their business.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“Our senses are woefully limited. Our brains are but tiny candles flickering in an infinity of darkness. Our only wisdom is to admit that we cannot understand, and since we cannot understand we must do the best we can with faith. which is our only talent. The greatest act of faith we are capable of is that of loving another more than we love ourselves, and occasionally we can be quite good at it.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“The mind is a miser," he said. "Nothing is ever thrown away, and it's amazing what you can find if you dig deep enough.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“Show me a quest for personal immortality and I'll show you a path through a slaughterhouse, and the incense of personal divinity is the stench of other people's corpses.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“Ox, what occupation is most closely linked to insanity?'

'Emperor,' I said promptly.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“The problem with 'the crown jewel of Chinese literature' [Dream of the Red Chamber] is that it has two thousand pages and an equal number of characters, and the hero is an effeminate ass who should have either been spanked or decapitated, both ends being equally objectionable.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“Ox, at an early age a Chinese genius gazes at the path that lies ahead and reaches for a wine jar," Master Li said. "Is it any wonder that our greatest men have lurched rather than walked across the landscape as they hiccuped their way into history?”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“To cherish perfection is to commit creative suicide, and every true artist knows that a masterpiece is an accident that should be burned.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“A fool will study for twenty or thirty years and learn how to do something, but a wise man will study for twenty or thirty minutes and become an expert. In this world, it isn't ability that counts, but authority.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone

“I used to love history class. I can still quote whole passages by heart: "When the emperor entered the Hall of Balming Virtue, a violent wind came from a dark corner, and out of it slithered a giant serpent that coiled around the throne. The emperor fainted, and that night earthquakes struck Loyang, and waves swept the shores, and cranes shrieked in the marshes. On the fifth day of the sixth moon a long trail of black mist floated into the Hall of Concubines, and hot and cold became confused, and a hen turned into a rooster, and a woman turned into a man, and flesh fell from the skies." Now, that is grand stuff, just the thing to give to growing boys, and then we were old enough to read the greatest of all historians. This is what Ssu-ma Ch'ien had to say about the exact same subject: "The Chou Dynasty was nearing collapse." Bah.”
― Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone