“As though to fortify me she took the letter out and placed it on the table between us. Its pages were folded, yellowed like old skin, the faint tattoo of aged ink that had seeped onto the blank side visible… — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share Image
Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall… — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“She saw the stubborn set of my face. "I've never felt blessed," I said. "There must be free will to choose. Do you know… — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“none of my children—not one—ever took the easy road; that they strove to keep sanity, reason, and compassion alive and burning in these tragic… — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“A garden is composed of a variety of clocks, Aritomo had once told me. Some of them run faster than the others, and some… — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
Memories I had locked away have begun to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep, these broken floes… — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“As with all the principles of aikijutsu, you do not meet the force of the strike head-on. You parry, you step to the side… — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“The mountains are as I have always remembered them, the first light of the morning melting down their flanks.” — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“Time seems to overlap, like the shadows of leave pressing down on other leave, layer upon layer.” — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“Before me lies a voyage of a million miles, and my memory is the moonlight I will borrow to illuminate my way.” — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“Some element in the air between us changed, as though a wind that had been blowing gently had come to an abrupt stillness.” — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
“It is getting dark. In the low mists over the hills, an orange glow broods, as if the trees are on fire. Bats are… — Tan Twan Eng Copy Share
