The Cleaners Quotes

“We all need to be reminded, from time to time, that we’re better than we remember.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“It was all such high-minded nonsense, chicken soup photographed in a studio to be peddled as wisdom. The art was always better than the explanation of the art.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“He wept then, knowing that he would not remember this moment in the future, feeling both the weight of freedom and the lift of oblivion.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“Except . . . when you did that, you also stopped conversing with yourself. Leaving deposits and examining them was how people understood their own story, how they grew.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“Someone who could perceive the raw memory deposits of others was especially paranoid about revealing the self.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“We all need to be reminded, from time to time, that we’re better than we remember”
― Ken Liu , The Cleaners

“You can’t control everything. Some forgetting is healthy.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“She had once loved to draw, loved to tell stories to herself as she ran the pen over the page, fusing a memory into the drawing, a scene that came to life when she was done, running her fingers over the inked grooves. But she had stopped. Art was too open, too naked. Someone who could perceive the raw memory deposits of others was especially paranoid about revealing the self. She preferred to type than to write. She tried her best never to leave a personal trace in the world. Except . . . when you did that, you also stopped conversing with yourself. Leaving deposits and examining them was how people understood their own story, how they grew. But Clara had understood her. She was reminding Beatrice how she loved art, the beauty of the kind of deposited story that only she could make and appreciate. Just for herself. Not a performance for an audience.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“You can’t relive a memory that you didn’t have a part in creating. But you can still be affected by the moods and emotions in a stranger’s deposits.’ That was his father, before he had accepted that Gui was different. ‘You can never tell how something feels to the hand of the owner. So be humble. Treat everything you clean with respect.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“You never wanted to know the people you liked and admired too well; it was impossible to reconcile what they wanted”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“Everyone wanted the possessions to conform to the story they’d been telling themselves for years. Cleaning became the excuse to refight old wars, to reopen scabbed-over wounds, to relitigate settled truths.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“people went there and paid to get rid of unwanted memories.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“We all need to be reminded, from time to time, that we’re better than we remember,” Beatrice said.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“Like all true joys, it was laced with the shadow of pain and terror—pain that was assuaged, terror held at bay.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“Never judge why someone wants to clean. All you can do is to help them the only way you can; do your job.” His father had raised the brush, glistening with dregs like dark, misshapen pearls, and offered them to him. “Touch it. Touch it so you know how to share in someone’s pain without being overwhelmed by it. Be careful. This may burn.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“You can’t relive a memory that you didn’t have a part in creating. But you can still be affected by the moods and emotions in a stranger’s deposits.” That was his father, before he had accepted that Gui was different. “You can never tell how something feels to the hand of the owner. So be humble. Treat everything you clean with respect.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“To allow others the space for secrets was the greatest gesture of love she knew how to give, but did they understand that?”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“You never wanted to know the people you liked and admired too well; it was impossible to reconcile what they wanted you to know with what they didn’t. Few people were better than they remembered.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“The art was always better than the explanation of the art.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“We all need to be reminded, from time to time, that we’re better than we remember,”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners

“Whatever the trendy currents were for how people wanted to spend their money, there was always the need to scrub off unpleasant mind-sheddings, to become a different person.”
― Ken Liu, The Cleaners