Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Yiyun Li

Quote by Yiyun Li

“I was not yet given a life when you were born; when I was born you were old already. How I wish I had not come this late, but death has placed mountains and seas between you and me.”

Quote by Yiyun Li

Book:Gold Boy, Emerald Girl
Create image

Work

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li

Yiyun Li, born on November 4, 1972, is a prominent Chinese writer known for her profound character portrayal and unique narrative style. Her works have won wide acclaim from readers. more

You May Also Like

“The Rule really is: be kind to yourself when you do muck things up. Be forgiving and accept that it's all part of that growing older but no wiser routine. Looking back, we can always see the mistakes we made, but we fail to see the ones looming up. The older you get, the more areas you've covered to make mistakes in. As long as we look back and see where we went wrong and resolve not to repeat such mistakes, there is little else we need to do. Remember that any Rules that apply to you also apply to everyone around you. Once you accept this, you'll be more forgiving and kinder towards yourself and others. Time does heal and things do get better as you get older. After all, the more mistakes you've made, the less likely that you'll come up with new ones. The best thing is that if you get a lot of your mistakes over and done with early on in life, there will be less to learn the hard way later on. And that's what youth is all about, a chance to make all the mistakes you can and get them out of the way.”

KindSelfAgeMistakeYouthQuoteForgiveAcceptRule
Book:The Rules of Life: A personal code for living a better, happier, more successful kind of life
Create image

“I am interested in human happiness, sir, in the better understanding of what it is and how it may be achieved. I wish to explore whether it is a state which arises from the chance convergence of circumstances, or whether it is a condition we may will ourselves to possess. I want to understand how we may recognise it when it is within our grasp and in what ways we can learn to live without it if we are not lucky enough to experience it.”

Happiness
Book:The Other Bennet Sister
Create image

“… how on earth had it come to this; how was she looking at care homes for the elderly when she still felt twenty years old inside, still believed she could do headstands, and when there was still so much that she wanted to do with her life – like swim the English Channel or ride across plains with proper cowboys, learn the trumpet or walk the Camino de Santiago with all her belongings on her back. How might she do these things now? Where had the time gone? What was left of her one, brief life?”

Age
Book:The Night in Question
Create image

“There we were last summer, having a picnic in a sylvan setting. Birds were singing, the atmosphere was full of soft colours; there were children in gay cotton frocks, their laughter filled the air. Elders sat in a kind of Elysian abstraction. I remember it so well. I remember a certain old lady who sat with her back against a tree, her profile to me. I sat desultorily conversing but gazing at that face which was gazing at her grandchildren. And there came to me out of that old face the face of the young woman she had been. I saw that she had been beautiful, bright and humorous - and it was all there still as she watched her grandchildren. Old age was merely a veil which a moment of vision could snatch off.”

AgeMelancholyYoung At Heart
Book:A Countryman's Spring Notebook
Create image