“She walked indoors, and staring once more at her orchids, thought to herself: ‘Flowers have their spring-time, a time for fresh blossoms and young leaves. I am young, but frail as the willow that dreads the first breath of autumn…… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“Not chewed-off ends of the sky’s embroidery? ‘What are they?’ – ‘Raise the blind a bit and see.’ ‘A white hand snatches some and… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“If with the water’s rosy hue comparison be made, Carmine tears and dewy flowers seem of the self-same shade. Yet lady’s tears and flowers in this unalike I find, That the flowers are still and smiling, but the tears flow unallayed. As she gazes on the smiling flowers, her tears at last grow dry; But as they dry, the springtime… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share
“True learning implies a clear insight into human activities. Genuine culture involves the skilful manipulation of human relationships.” — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“most common people oft he market-place much prefer light literature to improving books. The problem is, that so many romances contain slanderous anecdotes about sovereigns and ministers or cast aspersions upon man’s wives and daughters so that they are packed with sex and violence. Even worse are those writers of the breeze-and-moonlight school, who corrupt the young with pornography and… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share
“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true; Real becomes not-real where the unreal's real.” — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“There was a peal of laughter from the girls. Then, before anyone could say a word, the line was seen to move a fraction.… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“The cunning waste their pains; The wise men vex their brains; But the simpleton, who seeks no gains, With belly full, he wanders free… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“Can I, that these flowers’ obsequies attend, Divine how soon or late my life will end? Let others laugh flower-burial to see: Another year… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“As for the ‘settling of accounts’ that Bao-yu had proposed to Qin Zhong, we have been unable to ascertain exactly what form this took;… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“The immortal parts of the late Droopy’s relict leaped through her cranium and described several somersaults in the air. She” — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
“She walked indoors, and staring once more at her orchids, thought to herself: ‘Flowers have their spring-time, a time for fresh blossoms and young… — Cao Xueqin Copy Share Image
