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Quote by Tash Aw

“I was condemned, as my father said, to a life of mediocrity. I didn't know what a mediocre life looked like, exactly, but I thought it resembled my father's.”

Quote by Tash Aw

Book:The South
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The South

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Author

Tash Aw
Tash Aw

Tash Aw is a Malaysian-born writer known for his unique literary style and profound insights into Asian culture. His works often explore themes of identity, cultural conflict, and globalization. more

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“Your father ruined my life; you will not ruin my daughter's! I don't give a damn for your rank. You will marry her, do you understand me?" "Papa!" "Stay out of this, girl---" "No, you stay out of it!" she shouted without warning. He looked her up and down in outrage, but Kate's temper snapped. "Leave him alone! I've managed just fine these past many years without a father, so don't think you can come barging into my life and immediately tell me whom to marry!" "Oho, so you do reproach me?" he exclaimed. "I knew it!" "You sailed off and forgot about me!" she cried. "I did not!" "You went on with your life! Your new family. Well, I went on with mine, too," she flung out as the anger burst from her more sharply than she had intended. "Warrington is my lover. So what? Welcome to the world.”

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“I'm not interested in your charity, Duke! Remember yesterday?" The dolt had surely had not forgotten her hurling his money at his head. "As for you, Papa, you forfeited the right to pick my husband when you had Charley lie to me and tell me you were dead. So, kill each other if you like. You're both fools, as far as I'm concerned!" With a furious sob, she ran the rest of the way to her cabin, leaving the two oddly similar men behind in an awkward, stymied silence.”

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“She plucked another figurine from the mantle: a rose carved from a dark sort of wood. She held it in her palm, its solid weight surprising, and traced a finger over one of the petals. 'He made this one for Elain. Since it was winter and she missed the flowers.' 'Did he ever make any for you?' 'He knew better than to do that.' She inhaled a shuddering breath, held it, released it. Let her mind calm. 'I think he would have, if I'd given him the smallest bit of encouragement, but... I never did. I was too angry.' 'You'd have your life overturned. You were allowed to be angry.' 'That's not what you told me the first time we met.' She pivoted to find him arching a brow. 'You told me I was a piece of shit for letting my younger sister go into the woods to hunt while I did nothing.' 'I didn't say it like that.' 'The message was the same.' She squared her shoulders, turning to the small broken cot in the shadows beside the fireplace. 'And you were right.”

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“My father slept here for years, letting us have the bedroom. That bed in there... I was born in that bed. My mother died in that bed. I hate that bed.' She ran a hand over the cracking wood of the cot's frame. Splinters snagged at her fingertips. 'But I hate this cot even more. He'd drag it in front of the fire every night and curl up there, huddling under the blankets. I always thought he looked so... so weak. Like a cowering animal. It enraged me. 'Does it enrage you now?' A casual, but careful question. 'It...' Her throat worked. 'I thought him sleeping here was a fitting punishment while we got the bed. It never occurred to me that he wanted us to have the bed, to keep warm and be as comfortable as we could. That we'd only been able to take a few items of furniture from our former home and he'd chosen the bed as one of them. For our comfort. So we didn't have to sleep on cots, or on the floor.' She rubbed at her chest. 'I wouldn't even let him sleep in the bed when the debtors shattered his leg. I was so lost in my grief and rage and... and sorrow, that I wanted him to feel a fraction of what I did.' Her stomach churned. He squeezed her shoulder, but said nothing. 'He had to have known that,' she said hoarsely. 'He had to have known how awful I was, and yet... he never yelled. That enraged me, too. And then he named a ship after me. Sailed it into battle. I just... I can't understand why.' 'You were his daughter.' 'And that's an explanation?' She scanned his face, the sadness etched there. Sadness- for her. For the ache in her chest and the stinging in her eyes. 'Love is complicated.”

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“If we were to realise the perilous situation we were in on account of our childhoods, we might exercise extreme vigilance around people we were insitinctively attracted to. We might assume that almost anyone we felt mysteriously and powerfully drawn to would probably turn out to be wrong. We might learn to resist falling in love at first sight- and would be just as careful about swiftly falling into hatred. We would undestand that we needed to fight our insticts at every turn, because of how badly our pasts have corrupted them.”

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“Nixon has been the subject of more psychobiographies than any other politician. His career vindicates one of that maligned genre's most trustworthy findings: the recipe for a successfully driven politician should include a doting mother to convince the son he can accomplish anything, and an emotionally distant father to convince the son that no accomplishment can ever be enough.”

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