tgb quotes

words from the ghost bride by yangsze choo / dm to request a quote to be added

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

My amah seldom praised and often found fault, yet I knew she would throw herself under an ox cart for me.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

Our house was a shrine to my dead mother.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

‘If I had known how easy it is to lose your life, I would have treasured mine better.’

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

We Chinese did not like to give or receive certain gifts for superstitious reasons; knives, because they could sever a relationship, handkerchiefs for they portended weeping; and clocks as they were thought to measure out the days of your life.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

Nevertheless, I slipped Er Lang’s scale into the pocket of whatever I wore. It was of no practical use here, but its cool weight gave me some comfort.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

The problem with the dead was that they all wanted someone to listen to them.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

This, then, was how a ghost could steal the life out of someone.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

But I want to see Er Lang. I don’t want to wait fifty years, or cheat Tian Bai out of a love that he will never have.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

… and the melancholy sound of his instrument had always exemplified dusk and yearning to me.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

From time to time, I blew on Er Lang’s scale. There was never any response but I continued in the vain hope that it could call him back.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

In death, he had become a god.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

Somberly I climbed into bed. I was afraid.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

When Lim Tian Ching had complimented me, I had merely felt revulsion, but praise from Er Lang made my chest flutter unexpectedly. That fascinating voice was an unfair advantage, I thought.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

To follow Er Lang would be a leap into the unknown, the culmination of all my desires and terrors.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

… and I wished with all my heart that he were still with me.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

I didn’t know if this was love, but it made me tremble, both elated and afraid.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

I thought that in the grand scheme of things I was no more effective than a mouse deer, hiding my defenseless self here and there and called out by the drumming of information in dribs and drabs.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

It seemed to me that in this confluence of cultures, we had acquired one another’s superstitions without necessarily any of their comforts.

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

‘Open your mouth then.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m going to put my tongue in.’

[tgb quotes @ghostbrides]

‘... Remember, you and I are the only living creatures in this world.’