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Portrait of Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck

(1892–1973) Children's Writer United States

304 quotes in 1137 categories

When you crave cross‑cultural perspective, these 304 Pearl S. Buck excerpts illuminate human endurance and compassion across diverse settings.

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Pearl S. Buck was a children's writer from the United States, best known for The Good Earth.

Quick Facts About Pearl S. Buck

Born: June 26, 1892
Died: March 6, 1973
Nationality: United States
Profession: Children's Writer
Notable works: The Good Earth
Known for: Imperial Woman, The Good Earth, Peony, A House Divided, China Sky
Spouse: Richard J. Walsh

About Pearl S. Buck

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker Buck was an American writer and humanitarian. She is best known for The Good Earth, the best-selling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932, which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China" and for her "masterpieces", two memoir-biographies of her missionary parents.

Biography source: Wikipedia

Awards & Honors

Nobel Prize in Literature Pulitzer Prize for the Novel National Women's Hall of Fame William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Horatio Alger Award

Quotes by Pearl S. Buck

the heart never grows old.

Forever young

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Vermont is a country unto itself.

Country

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All birth is unwilling.

Birth

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“It was Wang Lung's marriage day.”

First-sentence

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“Mind and body were well or ill together.”

Body

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The rich are always afraid.

Afraid

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an artist is always seeking revelation.

Art

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Life is stronger than death.

Death

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Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors.

Chinese

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Man was lost if he went to a usurer, for the interest ran faster than a tiger upon him.

Debt

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“One would have said he was his son's servant rather than his father.”

Father

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If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.

American way

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The melting-pot idea is futile ... The brew in a melting pot is always boiling over.

Boiling

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“Make love! He disliked the phrase. Could one make love?”

Disliked

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“wept, and in the wrinkles of old people. In the house of the Manchu Bannerman,”

Old people

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there is one word that can be the guide for your life- it is the word reciprocity.

Guides

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I do not believe there is any important difference between men and women - certainly not as much as they may be…

Believe

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It certainly must have been a relief for women of the country to realize that one could be a woman and a…

Country

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Euthanasia is a long, smooth-sounding word, and it conceals its danger as long, smooth words do, but the danger is there, nevertheless.

Danger

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Exclusion is always dangerous. Inclusion is the only safety if we are to have a peaceful world.

Dangerous

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She had always been too wise to tell him all she thought and felt, knowing by some intuition of her own womanhood…

Felt

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starvation is a shame and disgrace to the world and totally unnecessary in modern times.

Disgrace

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A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated and turned out to grass.

Educated

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If there is no other life, then this one has been enough to make it worth being born myself...a human being.

Born

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The truth has never been told about women in history: that everywhere man has gone woman has gone too, and what he…

Done

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It is not healthy when a nation lives within a nation, as colored Americans are living inside America. A nation cannot live…

America

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The body was so little a part of him that its final stillness seemed nothing of importance. He was half out of…

Body

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The community must assume responsibility for each child within its confines. Not one must be neglected whatever his condition. The community must…

Advantage

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Prejudice ... is a subjective emotion which expresses itself upon others only because of an inner necessity for release. The object is…

Dissatisfaction

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An intelligent, energetic, educated woman cannot be kept in four walls-even satin-lined, diamond-studded walls-without discovering sooner or later that they are still…

Cells

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I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in…

Angel

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A favorite means of escaping the solution to any problem is to declare it too complex for solution. This absolves us from…

Acceptance

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“...the relationships between the five elements. What are the five elements? They are wood, fire, earth, metal, water. These create, and also…

Creation and destruction

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“Out of the woman's great brown breast the milk gushed forth for the child, milk as white as snow, and when the…

Children

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“I would ask my teacher a question," Yehonala said. "Ask," Lady Miao replied. She was brushing fine quick strokes upon a large…

Teacher

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“Somewhere in the periphery of his mind and consciousness was the warning that Russia must be watched. For hundreds of years Russia…

Psychology

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I know that the only completely happy life for man and for woman is their life, first together, and then with their…

Believer

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“How can school help you with the land?" he asked. An old grandfather leaned out of the shadows to make answer. "Learning…

Books

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“Andre had been telling her an ancient legend of the fall of man into evil. It came about, he said, by the…

Adam

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“In the ancient Book of History, upon which Confucius himself based his philosophy, it is said... The people must be cherished, The…

Books

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Pearl S. Buck by topic

Men (39) Life (37) Love (26) People (23) Psychology (21) Ifs (20) Time (18) Mind (17) Children (17) World (16) Nature (15) Books (15) Inspirational (14) Humans (14) Country (13) Parenting (12) May (11) Knows (11) Heart (11) Earth (11) The-eternal-wonder (10) Pearl-s-buck (10) Mother (10) Feminism (10) Religion (9)