King of the Armadillos Quotes

“his brain could keep on buzzing with all his missed notes, missed words, missed chances,”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“Death, unhappiness, suffering, they’re just numbers on the price tag of living.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“he hadn’t managed to protect Mei Wan and the boys, Victor especially.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“the Indians and the Chinese, we come from the same people. They walked over to America from Asia on a land bridge many thousands of years ago.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“When he sat in front of the piano, nothing mattered to him more. It would never change, never leave, never reject or fail him, its eighty-eight keys keeping him anchored to the world.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“Victor thought there might be something spiritual about what music made him feel. Maybe that was what people meant when they said they felt the presence of God.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“potential for a whole new kind of hurt.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“worried about what she would think of him after”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“Victor had never thought of himself as yellow before, but that was what his records said he was,”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“chance to try on what it was like to be different, to be bold and self-assured, unafraid of making a fool of himself.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“Epiphany at Carville, a feast day twelve days after Christmas. The”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“Sam seemed tired, too, too tired to notice that behind her closed eyes, she was, in fact, far, far, away.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“filled in the blanks with whatever she wanted to believe. Maybe”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“But clearly China and death weren’t the same at all.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“ritual he and Ma used to have of meeting each other in their imaginations.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“her joke had broken down that wall, bringing Ma into the room, making him feel like he was betraying her.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“For Chinese people, naming is like making a wish.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“She had so many of these small, dear moments clinging to her”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“Change was, in a manner of speaking, the sole mainstay of his life. Laughing”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“For most of his life, it had been useful for Victor to separate his mind from his body.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“the Big House loomed, a great, familiar shadow in the distance, feeling for the first time like a refuge from the night.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“holding her hand made his body feel weightless.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“he wondered what it was like to be the kind of boy, rough and cocksure, who couldn’t imagine losing a fight.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“the moon was bloated in a field of stars”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“No matter how you slice it,” she said, with a faraway look in her eyes, “every living thing is vulnerable. Human or armadillo, the price of life is suffering.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“Life is filled with so much pain, we should take what small joys the gods see fit to give us.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“sheet music was a code telling your hands what to do, a language made of sounds, not”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“he realized this was what it meant to be a leper.”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“she would die of grief if she knew he had leprosy”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos

“trying to catch the scent of home as he imagined the letter”
― Wendy Chin-Tanner, King of the Armadillos